


Devil to Pay

by JoJo



Series: Strange Bedfellows [3]
Category: The Magnificent Seven
Genre: Brain Injury, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Present Tense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-27
Updated: 2009-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-05 08:16:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoJo/pseuds/JoJo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ezra worries about his head.  The others worry more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Town is cool and silent.

It lies in shadow, only the faintest whisper of a breeze that blew in with the dawn, kicking up dust.

No-one's about their business.

No-one, that is, except Chris Larabee's men, two on horseback, three more cranky and stiff on the boardwalk by the jail. And Larabee himself, standing alongside them with his face turned towards the streaky sky.

The empty streets are a boon. Far as Larabee's concerned, just doesn't do for folk to watch security saddle up and ride out of town. He knows the population's gotten reliant on its hired guns - witnessing an exit, however partial, might make them nervous. Or, worse, give them stupid ideas.

Chris likes the feel of this hour, anyhow, though it's pretty plain his view isn't universally shared. He's grimly amused by the farewell committee who've dragged one another down to the jail. None of them have been obliged to rout themselves out of bed for no reason, but this habit of watching each each other in and out of town seems to have become a tradition. Like much else that binds them, it's germinated and hatched of its own accord, puzzles Chris almost as much as it pleases.

His lip curls to see the early-morning mess of JD. Kid's clearly climbed into some random garments in the dark, in a tearing hurry, has no idea his shirt is inside-out. Josiah, who possibly didn't have the problem of dressing, since he never approached undressing, has taken possession of a chair and is guarding it, hands tight around the staff that's propped between his knees. He looks like he'd brain anyone who tried to shift him. Nathan sits a little apart on the top step of the boardwalk, elbow to one knee, chin cradled in a hand. He keeps rubbing the other hand down the back of his neck.

Buck hasn't made it at all.

"We'll be coupla days."

It's as succinct as Chris's leadership speeches usually are.

Nathan seems doubtful. He moves his chin from his hand, jerks it up towards Ezra who's just let out a jaw-cracking yawn, saddle creaking as he shifts for a comfortable position. "You should travel slow."

"We'll travel slow enough," Chris tells him. "Judge Travis reckons case'll be done soon as we say our piece."

"Ain't gonna be done though, is it?" JD says. "Judge Travis ain't even gonna be there, an' I heard him, too, Chris. That defender feller's got a reputation."

"We c'n only tell 'em what we know."

Chris won't get into the harsh realities of their upcoming trip before they've even started. He glances up at Vin who's poised and ready to leave, face hidden in the shadow of his hat.

"Yeah, and we know the Palmer brothers are a bunch of thievin', dangerous outlaws," JD carries on. "Doesn't mean Silas Gawtrey'll see it that way. You heard he saved Long Joe Wilkins from the rope last year?" The kid starts off sounding pessimistic and somehow ends up sounding impressed.

"I heard."

"You up to this trip, son?" Josiah demands of Ezra, who's leaning both wrists on his saddle-horn, shoulders rounded.

Chris has been expecting the question. He didn't figure it would be Josiah who got to it first, though. Figured that'd be Buck, seeing as he's the one who's taken it on himself to pad around Ezra from a safe distance like a big guard-dog. All the while pretending he's doing no such thing. For now, though, Buck seems to have found himself too comfortable a bed. Far off in the back of Chris's brain tickles the usual hope that it isn't more comfort than Buck can handle.

"Ezra don't have a choice." He's tired of saying the same things over and over. "None of us do. We've bin called to bear witness and that's an end to it."

"They're fixin' to make you look bad." JD seems to have forgotten that Chris doesn't care to be challenged to his limit. Usually Buck'd choke the kid off before he reached that point. Chris makes an allowance for the early hour, is patient in his reply.

"Look a sight worse if we don't show."

"Just keep an eye on him that's all," Nathan says gruffly, chin still angled towards Ezra.

Chris chews the corner of his bottom lip, makes a face. Ezra just snaps his tongue to show them he's awake, listening, and has an opinion. He usually complains when they talk about him like he's not there, but he doesn't seem to have the energy for it this morning. The snap is pretty expressive though.

"And watch your backs in Ridge City. Palmers'll be there in numbers."

True enough.

Chris nods in acknowledgment of Josiah's warning.

Hell, the Palmers are numbers. As far as extended families go, they knock all comers into a cocked hat. And Gabe Palmer, youngest son, despite having done his utmost to split open Ezra's head like a watermelon, is probably the most harmless of the entire bunch.

"You boys hold things together here. We'll be back soon's we can." He mounts, lets Vin lead them off, allows Ezra to fall in a beat behind Vin.

"I mean it," Nathan says quietly, rising to his feet just before Chris makes a move to swing his horse around. "You need to make him look after hisself. Just no tellin' where he's at with his fallin' down and not gettin' up again. And the doctor in Ridge City's an old fool."

"I hear ya," Chris says, and kicks away.

He knows Vin will start them off easy, although when it comes down to it, he's doubtful of their ability to do what Nathan expects. Ezra hasn't shown much appreciation for being treated like an invalid.

Truth be told, he's surprised them all so far, showing a seam of grit they just hadn't expected to uncover. Considering how damn awful poleaxed he'd been, how far away from them he'd drifted for a week or more, the sight of him upright and irritating never ceases to perplex. No quiet days sitting in a chair under a blanket, either. Ezra won't put up with comparisons between gunshot wounds and his own experience, won't allow that nine pounds of wrought iron blazing through his skull at speed should warrant any special treatment.

Nathan, for one, is fascinated by this sturdy, uncomplaining Ezra, wondering slyly if his brain got so turned around he woke up inhabiting another personality altogether. Josiah mutters that it could be a miracle. But there's an element of the unknown in Ezra's situation that niggles Chris fiercely, something he fears none of them can do a damn thing to mitigate.

All they can do, it seems, is read the signs best they can, try to head him off at the pass. It's been nearly three months since he took the first tentative steps out of Nathan's, got down the stairs unaided and headed for the saloon. In that time Chris is aware of four or five blackouts, the first few coming close together. Nathan hopes they'll tail off, stop altogether.

In the meantime, Ezra's developed a raft of little tics they're slowly learning to recognize - the absent knuckle-rub along one eyebrow; the casual stroke of a thumb at the spot where the scar lies hidden; the sudden heel of the hand to the eye. Any of these might signal he's about to drop like a goddamn stone.

Chris is mystefied as to how Ezra hasn't managed to kill himself yet. Or anyone else, come to that.

The last time, two weeks back, Josiah just managed to get out a "Chris ... Ezra!" before Ezra tipped sideways out of his saddle. Chris broke that fall, the two of them ending up in a heap on the ground.

"Jesus, Ezra," Chris'd panted as he struggled out from under the dead weight. But Ezra's face was the color of putty and he hadn't come round for ten minutes. When he did finally wander back to consciousness, he'd seemed amazed to find them grouped about him in shocked silence, thinking, yet again, that they lost him.

Another ten minutes later, he'd been bristling with annoyance at their anxiety and ready to ride.

In the same confounding way, by the middle of today, Ezra's thrown off a steadfast silence, begins to take an interest in life again. He breakfasts cheerfully on coffee and eggs when they stop in Eagle Bend, takes a nip from his flask before they resume the ride.

"Gentlemen, I suggest we increase our efforts to get to our destination as soon as possible. Because, you know, if we can possibly avoid having to find accommodation in the open air then I really think we should."

Vin scents a joke.

"C'mon, Ezra, you know you like to sleep out under the stars."

"Mr Tanner, I adore the stars, I truly do. But the lumbago that results from staring at them all night long I cannot abide."

It's rare to hear Vin's belly-laugh, see him flash his teeth.

"Whatever you say, Ez."

Vin often seems to find Ezra a source of some delight when the others just want to flatten him.

Chris draws his brows together and Vin reads the order perfectly, keeping the broad smile just in his eyes. He mounts up, leads off again, makes sure as discreetly as he can that Ezra falls in behind. Chris follows them.

_Hell, Buck, you should see us ... he ain't gonna do a damn thing we're not ready for._

They make good progress, stop once more to take on water, reach Ridge City just before Chen's Kitchen on South Street closes for the night.

Ridge City's full to bursting, the hotels booked out and the streets full of people. The three of them eat something hot and sour at speed, negotiate a couple of bunks in a back-room of a house just outside city limits and get the horses bedded down. Then they wander into the middle of town, stand in the street between the Bluebird Inn and the Central Saloon and look at each other. There's a carnival atmosphere raging, music from one side, singing from the other. The lights are brighter at the Central, the swell of voices louder.

"We're here to do a job," Chris reminds them, wondering if the other two realize that he truly doesn't enjoy playing the everlasting killjoy. He's not sure they'd be wise to set foot in either establishment but he wants a drink as hard as anyone. Vin and Ezra smirk at one another.

"The Central it is, then," Ezra says and waves a graceful arm to invite them to walk in its general direction.

\----

Chris doesn't care for the ebb and flow of excitable people. He doesn't feel at ease in this town and he doesn't like the fact that there's so many visitors here for a trial they can't even get in to see. That kind of thinking seems muddled. Even more, he doesn't like the fact that everywhere he looks there's Palmers, or their hangers-on. He can feel the sharp edges of the mood - the manic, surface good-humor which is always on the borders of out-of-control.

He's glad Vin Tanner's part of the deal, though. Chris always feels a kind of balance when he's with Vin. The very silence of the man at his side makes him feel steady, like there's a point to things. All Vin's doing right now is keeping quiet, sitting back in his chair, legs stretched under the table. He holds his glass of beer against his chest, perfectly relaxed and perfectly alert. And that's a solid comfort.

Chris is quite surprised to find that Ezra brings some kind of balance, too. An ability to make himself at home, perhaps. To circumvent strangeness, root himself squarely within the murky parameters of the human character wherever he finds it. At the moment, he has a table of strangers eating out of his hand as he shuffles his deck. He's shining under the lamplight, brilliant and sharp and dangerous, a combination that draws watchers like a magnet.

"Think he's glad he came?" Vin asks, smiling into his beer.

"Well if he is, I ain't," Chris grumps and that makes Vin bark another sudden laugh.

Ezra looks over at the sound. A lazy contentment crosses his face and Vin reflects it back at him without even thinking. Chris doesn't. He knows Ezra wouldn't expect him to for a moment.

\------

Being called up to the witness stand next day doesn't make Chris feel any better.

The lawyer, Silas Gawtrey, tall and imposing, several decades too young to have such a shock of silver hair, stands in a huddle with the Palmers' older brothers just inside the courtroom doors. He looks up with keen interest when the trio from Four Corners enters and Burton Palmer mutters something in his ear.

"Morning," Gawtrey chirrups.

Ezra, ever well-mannered, seems to be about to tip his hat until Chris treads on his boot heavily.

"Mistah ... damnit!" Ezra says and Burton Palmer grins at him like he's an idiot.

The courthouse is packed out. Ring and Gabe shuffle in and sit at the front, wrists and ankles shackled. Behind them, shoulder to shoulder, stand the older brothers and a couple of cousins. When they take their seats they slap Gabe and Ring on the back of the shoulder, ruffle their hair. Some clerk of the court, looking a little queasy, comes over to tell them to quit touching the prisoners. A laugh snorts out. More cousins and uncles are pacing the streets outside, just to remind everyone they're there. Tate, the prosecuting lawyer, is a lackluster mouse of a man who looks as if he doesn't have a friend in the world.

When the Judge bangs his gavel it feels like the beginning of a bad day.

It's not the first time Chris Larabee's stood up in a courtroom and given reasons for having put lead in a man. While he doesn't want immunity for his actions, and he certainly wouldn't expect to be thanked for them, being questioned like he's a two-bit criminal makes him wonder why he bothers. Why any of them bother.

Gawtrey is hard enough on him to make him sweat. And the whole time he's stood there with the eyes of the Palmers and the jury on him, he can see Vin looking like he's about to bolt, and Ezra, immaculate, gazing about like this is all highly diverting and nothing to do with him at all.

"Good job, Mr. Larabee," he whispers when Chris sits down again, and Chris isn't sure whether he means it or not. Probably not. Ezra doesn't dish out compliments freely, but sarcasm is like breathing to the man, even when it's going to earn him a roundhouse punch to the jaw.

Chris feels a little giddy when Vin gets up to take the stand. He's not sure why. Part of him is full of anger that any of them are having to do this, justice notwithstanding, while the Palmers sit there smugly sure they're on their way out of jail. But it's more than that. Chris might find the whole thing irritating as hell, but to Vin it's probably more akin to having his toenails pulled out.

For a few minutes, Chris hardly listens to what's being said. The same litany of questions is falling from the lawyer's mouth. Vin seems ready for them, and just as well. For whatever reason, Chris knows that Vin saw more than he did that day, and will be cross-examined even more thoroughly.

"I seen Gabe Palmer pick up something from the ground," Vin's saying when Chris begins to concentrate. His voice is lower and quieter than usual.

"Something?" asks Gawtrey, apparently amused.

"Well, I dint see at first what it was. I seen Palmer pick it up and then he hit Ez - Mr. Standish - with it."

"And you're sure it was an implement? It wasn't just Mr. Palmer's hand?"

Vin snorts audibly. "Hands don't cut through flesh and bone," he says and Gawtrey makes a face of distaste. "No, he picked up an iron post. Part of the fence. He picked it up and hit Ezra with it."

"I see. Where precisely, Mr. Tanner? Was this a blow to the back? The shoulder?"

"On the head. He hit him right on the head."

"And would you say that he was hit hard?"

"What?"

"Was the blow a sharp one? Or merely ... glancing, as Mr. Palmer has suggested?"

Vin's hands tighten perceptibly round the brim of his hat. His face is beginning to grow a little flushed, Chris notices. He only has to slide his eyes to the left to see that Ezra, on the other hand, is suddenly looking green about the gills.

"He hit him hard as he could."

"And what happened?"

Vin, confused, looks right over at Ezra, expression stricken, like he wants to help but has no idea how. Then he stares back at Gawtrey, ill-disguised hostility in his eyes.

"Well he fell," Vin says. "He went down and we could see he was bleedin'."

"You were how far away?"

"Thirty, forty yards."

"I find it hard to believe that you could have seen such a thing from such a distance."

"It was in the air," Vin says dully. In his chair, Ezra shifts in sudden discomfort and Chris digs an elbow into his side. Just for solidarity.

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Tanner? Could you repeat that? What was in the air?"

"There was blood," Vin says. "Flyin' through the air. We both saw it."

"Which may have been from the injury Mr. Palmer sustained from the pistol of Mr Larabee?"

"No. The blood was comin' from Ezra's head." Vin turns to look at Gabe Palmer for the first time. "From where that bastard hit him."

"And what did you do then?"

"More like what did he do," Vin says, and he sounds breathless with a desire to get his story told right. "He was windin' up ready to hit Ezra again where he lay. And so that was when Chr ... so Mr. Larabee shot him."

"I see. So both the defendants have been ... struck down at this stage?"

Vin rolls his shoulders. Chris knows he's holding on to his temper. Now he decides he's glad it's Vin on the witness stand and not Josiah or Buck, who may just have stalked right over and punched Gawtrey in his self-satisfied teeth. Vin's struggling, though. He fiddles with his hat, rocks a bit from side to side.

"They were all right," he says. "Ring was still standing and Gabe had a graze on his arm. Ezra was lyin' in the dirt unconscious and bleedin'."

"Hmmm, I see. So go on then, Mr. Tanner, tell us what happened then?"

"We got to Ezra. Saw he was bad."

"And you could tell that how?"

Vin frowns, looks across to Chris. The questions are clearly illogical and strange to him. Chris gives the tiniest nod of encouragement.

"Well I said dint I, he was unconscious and bleedin'. Bleedin' a lot, from his head."

Gawtrey nods to himself in a "that's your version" kind of a way.

"I find it hard to believe," he says sweetly. "Seeing Mr. Standish sitting here in the courtroom today looking so hale and hearty. I mean, you are contending that he was almost mortally wounded, and yet ... well, I see no mark on him."

"There's a mark," Vin mutters.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Tanner?"

"I _said_, there's a mark."

Gawtrey perambulates out from behind his table. He crosses the courtroom floor and his steps are crisp and loud in the silence. Chris becomes wary immediately and as Gawtrey gets up close a full-blown wave of protectiveness seethes over him. His gun hand twitches, which he knows is crazy. Next to him, Ezra doesn't move although Chris can feel agitation coming off him in waves.

"Let me see now." The lawyer seems as if he's half talking to himself, but Chris knows he isn't, knows that what he says is for the jury. Gawtrey comes right up and stands in front of Ezra, peers at him. "This mark ..." He examines Ezra's effortlessly debonair appearance with studied concentration, eyes traveling slowly over the glinting shock of hair, while Ezra plucks at the ruffle of one sleeve. As much as he would like the man to see what damage lies beneath, Chris hopes Ezra isn't suddenly going to make some drawling remark about the indentation. It's clear that Gawtrey isn't going to look too closely, and that Ezra certainly won't let him. Both are anxious, for different reasons, to leave the artifice in place. Gawtrey just lets his bemused facial expression do the talking. He makes sure the jury gets the full effect of it as he walks thoughtfully back to his table.

"I have no more questions," he says.

"Mr. Tate?" the Judge asks, but Tate shakes his head mournfully.

"Very well then, Mr. Tanner, you may stand down. The court will take a short recess."

Vin does more than stand down. He practically leaps off the witness stand, strides past them and barrels through the doors at speed, face flaming. Chris elbows Ezra in the ribs and gets up. They follow Vin right out the courthouse door and down the street, having to run to keep up as he turns the corner headed for the Central saloon.

"Whoah ... hold up there." Chris catches him by the arm. "We're not done yet."

"Anythin' written that you can't take a drink during a recess?"

"None at all," Ezra says, panting a little in their wake. "I think Mr Tanner has the right idea."

"Shit," Chris says, feeling a familiar wave of longing wash over him. "I think he does."

They crash into the Central three abreast. It's busy, smells of food and boots and polish and beer. Through the throng they can clearly see Milt Palmer, the oldest uncle, in residence at one end of the bar.

"Ignore him," Chris just has time to say before they press themselves up against the opposite end.

Vin doesn't speak until he's dropped a shot down his throat.

"Damn," he croaks as the liquid burns.

"Did good, Vin," Chris says quietly.

Vin's teeth are practically clacking. Chris catches the barkeep's eye. The man sidles down, fills him up again.

"No accountin'," Vin says, hand reaching, claw-like for the glass. "Ezra got injured, nearly died, and there's no accountin'".

Ezra shrugs, apparently sanguine. "I am in law enforcement for my sins, Mr. Tanner. It's not been my experience thus far that such a career offers security and good fortune." He turns a resigned smile on his companions. "However, I am demonstrably recovered and the Palmers have found themselves a talented attorney at law who understands what this jury wants to hear."

Chris glares at him but doesn't say anything.

_You ain't recovered. You're a walking stick of goddamn dynamite, and we have no idea when you're going to blow._

Diverting his stare to the caramel liquid in the bottom of his glass, Chris tips it down with a single swallow. Then he eyes Ezra's shot.

"Better keep ya head clear."

"I'd say it makes little difference, Mr. Larabee. Thanks to Gawtrey the jury were not convinced by you, or Mr. Tanner. What would you have me do different?"

"Git up and tell them what happened, Ezra, whaddya think?"  
Ezra looks a little nonplussed at that notion. "Ah have known many a circumstance - and feel that this may be a prime example - in which the choice of total veracity is, shall we say, unhelpful?"

"Damnit, Ezra, it's just tellin' the truth, why is that such a problem for you?" Vin sounds exasperated.

Ezra shrugs again. "Just an observation. As I have no memory of what transpired, Mr. Gawtrey will be free to draw his own conclusions."

"You have to tell the truth," Chris says doggedly, although he sees Vin taking stock of this reality and not liking it one bit.

"Why don't we just stay here?" Ezra suggests brightly. "Not go back at all? I think the outcome would be much the same."

"Finish ya drink," Chris growls at him.

As they push off the bar, a tobacco-rich rumble of a voice says, "And where you goin', reb?"

Ezra doesn't like to be called names. Chris knows he's had a lifetime of it, a signpost on his head, do feel free to disparage my origins and appearance. Not quite Nathan's experience, but enough that it generally gets a reaction. Chris plants a warning hand in the small of Ezra's back, keeps propelling him towards the door. Vin turns slightly to see who's speaking.

"Uncle Milt," he whispers.

"Hey, handsome! Mistah Johnny Reb!"

There's a loud burst of laughter when they don't respond. At the batwings three or four men group themselves about the exit belligerently, make sure anyone fixing to leave will have to shove their way out.

"Got a date in court, fancy man?" one of them asks, to much ribald sniggering.

"Reckon he has," Chris says quietly. He's turned the flat of his hand into a fist and is digging it into Ezra's spine to signal silence.

"Better let ya go then."

"Obliged."

"Make sure you say the right things, reb."

"We're watchin'" Milt Palmer calls from behind. "An' we'll be waitin' for ya."

The men at the door part and Chris bundles both Vin and Ezra through.

None of them speak until they're at the end of the street.

Ezra comes to a halt, plants his feet to resist the herding that Chris is still attempting, jabs a finger into his collarbone as he speaks. "I'm telling you, Chris, the truth won't pay. In a situation like this, the truth just never pays."

Chris grinds his teeth in frustration, jabs him back even harder. "Ezra, you'd better get your skinny butt into that court and swear on that goddamn Bible you'll tell the truth or so help me ..."

Ezra throws his hands in the air. "I know!" he says. "You'll shoot me!"

"Better him than one a' them," Vin murmurs. "Come on, Ez. Curtain up. We'll be right there, cheerin' you on."

What Ezra has to say to that they don't hear. He sets off towards the courthouse before Chris has time to manhandle him again and Vin falls into step right by him.

Before he picks up speed to join them, Chris glances back to see Milt Palmer standing outside the doors of the Central Saloon, one hand resting on the gun at his hip. Just watching.

_Sonofabitch._

There was going to be the Devil to pay for the truth before this day was through.

tbc


	2. Chapter 2

The whisky sits like a well of acid in Vin's gut when Ezra rises to his feet in the courtroom.

He feels hot, worse than when he was up there himself, constricted by the obligation to sit quiet where he is.

The place is packed to the gunnels, downstairs and up. More people than ever have forced their way in to get a good look at Four Corners' infamous son of the south in his finery. There's an atmosphere of hostility so self-righteous that Vin's beginning to realize just how powerfully the Palmers have got a grip. He rubs at his hairline with the back of his wrist.

Giving an ostentatious show of tugging the creases out of his jacket and straightening his tie, Ezra faces down Gawtrey, who watches him walk across the room. And then he steps up on the stand and faces down the massed ranks of Palmers with nothing but breezy confidence.

He swears his oath as if it's the most heartfelt thing he's ever said. Makes Vin and Chris quirk a brow at one another in spite of themselves.

Tate, who's giving every impression that he's already on the run, asks him a few tame questions about his occupation. Then inquires hopefully if he remembers anything about the apprehension of Gabe and Ring Palmer? Ezra is very sorry, says he regrets not. When Tate dares a question about the effect of injuries received, Gawtrey pops up instantly with an objection that such a line of questioning is not germane to the point in hand. The Judge agrees.

Chris is bubbling like a volcano ready to erupt. The word "germane" seems to particularly stick in his craw. Like it was put in there just to fox them.

"No more questions," says Tate. It's been his favorite phrase.

"Your witness, Mr. Gawtrey." The Judge slides his gaze across to the witness stand, adjusts his spectacles and sits back. There's a hum of anticipation throughout the gallery.

Silas Gawtrey sits where he is for a long time, regarding the pile of paper on the desk before him. As if suddenly pulled back into his present whereabouts he looks up apologetically, gets slowly to his feet. As he comes out from behind the desk and walks across to the witness stand his confidence is even more breezy than Ezra's.

"Ah yes," Gawtrey begins, "the mortally injured Mr Standish."

There's a ripple of amusement through the court and Tate leaps to his feet with a squeak of "objection!" which somehow gets drowned out. The Judge wipes his face with a handkerchief and waves Gawtrey on with a slight frown of admonishment.

"How are you feeling, Mr. Standish?"

Ezra gets hold of the end of a sleeve between his thumb and forefinger and tweaks it. He does the same with the other sleeve and then says, "I am tolerably well. Thank you."

The knee-jerk politeness sparks another wave of amusement.

"And you suffer no ill effects from this incident?"

Vin feels himself bristle.

_Excuse me .. we goddamn ger-mane all of a goddamn sudden? Come on, Ezra. This is ya chance._

"None at all, I assure you."

Vin has the sudden conviction that Ezra won't tell the truth - he can't - because Chris Larabee is sitting there listening. Because he, of all people, mustn't know.

_Damnit, Ezra. Just a nugget. Just somethin'. Somethin' , so's they'll know._

Ezra doesn't look their way once.

"Well of course," says Gawtrey, "that's good to hear. But ... it does make me wonder about the testimony of your fellows, Mr. Standish, who both swore under oath that you came close to expiring from your injury and that you have suffered unusual symptoms ever since."

"Mr. Tanner and Mr. Larabee worry entirely too much," Ezra says. He lifts his hand from the shelf in front of him as if it's made of lead, drags the back of his fingers distractedly from eyebrow to ear.

Chris stiffens like he's been poked with a sharp stick.

Vin wonders what'll happen should Ezra choose this moment to black out in front of the entire courtroom. Crashing face first from the witness stand would certainly have dramatic impact. He has the wild hope that perhaps Ezra will do it anyway, even if he feels fine, because he is - when it comes down to it - a conman from his head to his toes.

"Well," says Gawtrey, sticking his thumbs in his vest pockets, "We are all very glad to know that the infamous peacekeepers of Four Corners have suffered no harm at the hands of the defendants."

"I'm not sure it's our health and well-being that should be concerning you," Ezra drawls. "You should perhaps worry more about the citizens of this community who had money stolen from them, or the wives of the men shot dead while trying to safeguard it, or the unfortunate folk who've had their faces rearranged and their families threatened."

Ezra's words cause a hubbub that the Judge takes several minutes and repeated bangings of the gavel to silence. When the room is quiet again, Gawtrey shakes his head sadly.

"I might have more sympathy with your story of bleeding hearts, Mr. Standish," he says, "if we had heard one witness - one single eye-witness - to these supposed crimes, stand up in court today to corroborate what you claim. But we have not."

"They have all been intimidated, Mr. Gawtrey." Ezra is at his withering best and Vin would smile if he didn't feel so pissed at the world.

"Pure conjecture. At present, as I intend to outline in my summation, the only unresolved question is whether or not Gabriel Palmer is guilty of a serious assault on your person. Something more than simple self-defense. And I would respectfully suggest that he is not."

"Well if that's all that this court is here to discuss," Ezra says, "then we might as well terminate proceedings right away." He gives Gawtrey a dimpled smile, although something suggests to Vin that his confidence is beginning to unravel. "As I have explained on several occasions, I awoke from a period of unconsciousness to learn from my associates that I had been struck on the head by Mr Palmer. I have the scar to prove that something of this nature did indeed occur. The reason for our apprehension of these scoundrels is, alas, a mystery to me. I have no recollection of the payroll robbery. I have nothing but my complete faith in Mr. Tanner and Mr. Larabee to inform me as to why and when the injury was sustained."

"You have complete faith, you say?" Gawtrey is wide-eyed at that.

"Yes, sir, I do."

"You have complete faith in the word of a bounty hunter who is himself at risk of arrest for past grave misdemeanors, and a gunslinger who many feel ... yes, even in your fortress town, Mr. Standish ... who many feel is unstable at best, downright dangerous at worst."

"Objection!" screeches Tate at last. "Your honor, this is irrelevant tittle-tattle and as such has no place in a court of law!"

"Sustained," the Judge agrees tiredly. "I am sure the characters of the witnesses for the prosecution are of great interest, Mr Gawtrey, but they are not the ones on trial here."

"Very well, your honor. In that case, I have no more questions."

"Mr. Standish," the Judge says, peering at Ezra over the top of his spectacles. "You may stand down."

Ezra squares his shoulders and steps off the stand. For a split second, Vin thinks he's not going to find solid ground. There's a small waver as his boot touches the well-shined boards, almost too slight to notice, and Ezra scrubs at his brow again, nearly missing the target. As he walks back towards them, each footfall looks to be landing in invisible treacle. Chris gets a good handful of jacket soon as it's in range, practically drags him down on the seat, holds him in place.

"That is not an inexpensive piece of tailoring," Ezra mutters testily.

"Just try not to speak, pard."

Vin turns his shoulder, flattens the inside of his arm across Ezra's chest, casual as he can make it. Much as he wants the jury to learn how very far from insignificant Gabe Palmer's crunching blow has been, he thinks perhaps now's not the time after all. He's aware that Ezra fears public humiliation nearly as much as he fears personal abandonment.

Ezra looks down at the arm but doesn't say anything. Then he stares straight ahead, concentrating hard, knuckle in place. Vin can feel the anxious rise and fall of ribcage, the elevated heartrate. He doesn't drop the arm until the galloping rhythm slows down and Ezra clears his throat, fists his hands on his knees.

There isn't much more to be said in the Ridge City courthouse.

At least, nothing Vin wants to hear. It soon becomes clear that they're going to get nothing from this day. Worse than nothing, in fact.

Most of the jury look like they've already heard Gawtrey's summing-up speech. Tate has all but capitulated. He's not prepared to put his head on the chopping-block a minute more, just wants to get the hell out of the asylum. There's another recess, but it's only short, just a matter of the jury sitting in their room for a respectable number of minutes.

The Palmers are acquitted.

From what Vin understands, through the rage that's making his jaw ache, the jury seems to agree with most of the gallery that testimony from the peacekeepers from Four Corners - an ugly little blot on the desert landscape - is more or less untrustworthy.

Because, of course Larabee and Tanner would back each other up ... didn't mean Gabe and Ring Palmer did what they said, though ... and as for that southern sonofabitch, he isn't half killed at all ... besides, there were no actual witnesses to the payroll robbery, just a whole bunch of people who swear blind the Palmers were in Wyoming at the time ... so sure, we don't like the Palmers much, and we sure hope they leave quick as they came, but we'll do as Mr Gawtrey suggests ... he seems to know what he's talking about ... and the Palmers do have an awful lot of guns.

It's a fight to get out of the melee that boils up once the verdict is delivered. The Palmers are whooping and raising the roof, too ecstatic for a while to notice that Larabee and his men have slipped away to reclaim their weapons. Vin, freed from the confinement of the hated courtroom, leads them out the back door.

"Surely," pants Ezra, jacket between his knees as he struggles his way into his rig, "they've not got anything to berate us for now? Their precious boys are free. We'd be in whole lot more trouble if they were on their way to Yuma."

They stand on the corner out back of the courthouse, watching folks bustling past the end of the street on their way to spread the news.

Vin leans both hands on the rail in front of him. The disorderly tide has its own force and momentum, like it could pick you up and carry you downstream before you realized. He doesn't want them to get caught up in the current.

"This ain't justice," Chris growls. He's wound up tighter than a rattler about to strike.

"It's a pile a' shit," Vin agrees, "But it's a done deal. Palmers're gonna be all over this town, Chris - we need to get ourselves away. Too many of them and we ain't got our back-ups."

"You shoulda spoke up, Ezra," Chris pursues. "Shoulda told 'em."

"Told them what exactly?" Ezra is watching the people too, shifting his shoulder about trying to get his rig comfortable. He's plainly not in the mood for sparring with Chris, and Vin feels the familiar tension start to draw tight between them. It won't help, in the business of getting out of Ridge City in one piece.

"They got away with everythin' else - least you coulda done was ya best to get 'em locked up for tryin' to kill ya. It was you, I believe, lyin' at Nathan's out of your mind with a brain fever? It still is you that's been passin' out for no reason and scarin' the livin' shit out of us? Why in hell dintcha say something about it 'stead of rilin' up that Gawtrey feller spoutin' how you don't remember nothin'!"

"I don't remember _nothin'_," Ezra mimicks, and Vin wonders why in hell he'd want to goad Larabee further by quoting back his own words in that damn mocking way of his that made you want to remove his teeth. "You wanted me to tell the truth, and I told the truth."

"Sonofabitch, Ezra! You remember how god-awful sick you were."

"Gentlemen, as I think we suspected all along, the cards were stacked completely against us from the moment we arrived, whatever we had to say. The Palmer brothers are not going to enjoy the stay they deserve in Yuma jail. They are going to live to fight another day."

"Yeah," Vin interrupts. "And if we're real unlucky they're goin' to live to fight it today, against us, 'less we get the hell outa here."

Chris drags his eyes off Ezra, looks at the continuing tide of people flowing past the end of the street. Vin knows it really eats at him, that Ezra won't get mad, that he doesn't have a drop of vengeance in him - leastways, not the kind that Chris would recognize. Larabee just can't fathom it - how Ezra can be so full of fatalism that he wouldn't do his damndest to somehow get Gabe Palmer onto the nearest prisoner transport to Yuma for all the pain he's caused.

Not that Ezra Standish is exactly full of sweetness and light. In fact, far from it. Vin's seen him get wilder than a polecat in a pit if his preferred weapons of guile and subterfuge are used against him. Seen a look of steel blank out the light in his eyes. And he doesn't take kindly to threats against any of the myriad array of lost causes he periodically decides to champion. Beyond this, though, all other slings and arrows he seems to accept as being no more than his lot in life. Which makes him an odd kind of fish, Vin feels, with a thud of affection he can't rightly explain.

Yep, and it's something Chris won't be able to drop, Vin knows that, too. Larabee's put what's left of his heart and soul into the peculiar set-up at Four Corners, took the blow to Ezra as a personal affront, an attack on one of his own. The fact that the one of his own in question drives him to distraction every damn day of the week is neither here nor there. That's just grist to the mill.

"You nearly goddamned died, Ezra. That counts for something in my book."

Ezra frowns. "Obliged, I'm sure." He's polite, but baffled.

"Real nice, boys, but we need to go." Vin hauls their focus back to the situation in hand.

The horses are in the Livery on the other side of town from where they're now standing, but they can't take the chance of waltzing up Main Street to get there. Or, at least, Vin doesn't want them to take the chance. He'll fight any fight that comes, but he wakes up every day praying none does and determined to side-step all but the inevitable. Chris and Ezra will be happy enough to beat a hasty retreat and call it wise instead of chicken. Vin is relieved he doesn't have Buck and JD to convince. Anyone would be hard pressed to prevent those two from walking out any damn which way they pleased if their blood was running hot, and the more trouble the better.

"I suggest we take the circuitous route," Ezra says, right on cue.

Vin grins at him. "I suggest we go round."

They make it up the street out the back of the courthouse without meeting anyone, down a series of alleyways that reek of piss and garbage, through a shady wooded area behind the church and schoolhouse and straight across the railroad track where it bends away into a tree-lined gully heading out of town. None of them know Ridge City well, but Vin's sense of direction seems to come to him on the wind - he can practically smell where they've got to get to. He leads them down between warehouses and a storage yard and then finally back on to a narrow street. They mount the boardwalk and round the corner.

"Shit," Vin says in disgust, skidding to a stop.

Milt Palmer and three other men are standing at the bottom of the steps right in front of them. There are four more at the wide-open doors of the Livery, another group of three all with rifles standing a few yards away. The horses have been brought out and saddled, are standing in a line by a water trough. Everything else, the bedrolls, blankets, canteens and saddle-bags are in a pile on the ground.

"How kind," says Ezra coming to a halt so that Chris nearly barges into him. "You really shouldn't have bothered."

Milt Palmer already has a gun in his hand. He's a meaty bear of a man, solid and bearded, pretty sure, like the rest of his clan, that the world owes him something that he'll take by force if it isn't handed over without a squeak. His face is expressionless and he shakes his head, raises the weapon and cocks it, aims squarely at Ezra's chest.

"Don't you start, you lyin' reb bastard. I don't like you, don't like you at all. I don't wanna hear you." Palmer's voice is as expressionless as his face.

Vin slowly turns his head towards Ezra, tries to convey to him that he really better not open his idiot mouth again.

"What's the escort for, Palmer?" Chris asks. He's managed to sidle far enough past Ezra to get one shoulder in front of him.

"Need to make sure you leave, Larabee. Need to make sure you know not to come back, not you or your little gang of heroes."

"You got what you wanted," Vin says. "We ain't gonna make trouble."

"Need ta make sure," Palmer repeats. "Need ya weapons."

Vin hears Chris suck air through his teeth. He's already weighed up their options. They won't take on eleven armed men at this close range. Especially not mean, stupid ones.

"Listen, Palmer. Like he said, we ain't gonna make trouble. We're gonna leave, glad to, but we need our firearms."

"You don't need nothin', Larabee. Hand 'em over or we'll drop you right here."

A few seconds pass, and then Chris begins to unbuckle his belt. Vin and Ezra follow his lead. When the handguns are gone, Palmer sends up the three men at the foot of the steps to frisk them down. Ezra gets his coat dragged off him, the rig removed with brute force when it becomes clear the mechanism's not a simple one.

"Look at this, boys," one of the men hoots, turning the Derringer over and over in his hand. "A lady's little pea-shooter!" Another one removes the deck from Ezra's vest pocket, flips the cards carelessly down the steps. "That how it goes, reb?"

"You robbin' us, Palmer?" Vin asks, feeling the pull in his gut as his Winchester is removed. The guns are transported in silence over to the men at the Livery. One stays to stand guard over them, the others walk back to stand with Palmer.

"It's not robbin', it's insurance," says Milt Palmer. "Can't have you circlin' round and comin' in to bushwhack us dead 'a night."

"Well ... we may hafta come back some time. Collect what belongs to us."

"Nah, you won't come back."

Chris rubs at a knot in the floorboard with the toe of his boot. "You seem very sure."

"Yuh."

Milt Palmer holsters his gun. He turns to the group of men with rifles and nods once.

Vin thinks, in that second, that they're dead. He feels the same bolt of certainty crackle into Chris and Ezra. It seems harsh and unfair to be taken down without a chance to fight back.

The shot the marksman fires is pinpoint accurate.

It takes Vin's hat clean off, has enough heat and power to knock him off his feet. A second shot splits a wooden beam inches above Chris's head, rains splinters down on them. The dual distractions are enough that Ezra hardly has time to uncurl from his defensive crouch when a fist catches him under the chin and he hits the rail, goes right over.

Vin realizes he's being rushed and strikes out best he can. He cracks the assailant's forearm with the sole of his boot, gains his feet and drives him down the steps into the dirt. Frankly, he doesn't rate their chances for one second, thinks this must be how a deer feels when a pack of coyotes closes in - no matter how spiritedly it kicks and struggles, how fast it runs, deep down it knows it'll be overwhelmed.

But, for a trio of cornered prey, they put up a good fight for a time. Ezra goes under first, although not before having floored a man nearly twice as wide as he is and a good head taller. It's kind of a bad choice on his part, though, because he never manages to get upright after the follow-through.

Vin's vaguely aware that Ezra bangs his head on the side of the boardwalk as he's taken to the earth, but he doesn't have time to verify if he moves again after that. He feels split skin, tastes copper, sees the world red and white, spinning into infinity.

Chris is still fighting when the shutters come down.

\--------

He wakes on his back in the dark.

Before he even opens his eyes, Vin knows he's out in the open. There's a chill, a night breeze blowing across his face, he can hear noises of the desert night, sense the vast space above him.

He lies for a while, assessing his condition, thinking about what happened, wondering if there's danger in the near vicinity. His right eye doesn't want to open properly, there's dried blood caking his nostrils and his bottom lip feels ten times fatter than it should be.

Carefully, Vin flexes his hands, moves his arms a bit off the hard ground, rotates his shoulders. Everything stings and aches but there's no breaks. Then he does the same with his legs and back, moves the joints gingerly one at a time. Left knee's been trodden on, maybe. When he moves it there's a bolt of pain up his thigh and into his hipbone.

_God. Damnit._

He rolls himself on to his side, tries to get a look round, croaks out a few words.

"Chris .. you there? ... Ezra?"

"Here," comes a voice over to his left. "Ya hurt?"

"Herd'a buffalo .." is all Vin can say in explanation. "You?"

"Nothin's broke."

There's a shuffling sound, the low whinny of a horse not far away.

"Good Lord," groans another voice in the dark.

There's some labored movement, boots scraping on loose earth, then the troubling sound of Ezra hacking up bile and misery on to the dry ground.

"Stay where y'are, stop movin' around," Chris calls at him crossly.

"You deal with your ... misfortunes, and leave me ... to deal with mine."

"Didja hit ya head, Ez, you bleedin'?" Vin gets himself on to one knee, plants his hands on the ground.

"Yes I did, Mr. Tanner, and no I am not ... just ... "

Ezra alternates another bout of heaving with a string of uncharacteristically foul-mouthed invective. Vin would laugh at that, only he doesn't think Ezra banging his head and throwing up is funny at all.

Chris is angry, his voice clipped. "Ezra, stay where you are for one goddamn second, stop trottin' about and let me get to ya." Vin can see the shadow of Larabee on the move now his eyes have gotten accustomed to the dimness.

Ezra coughs a few times, goes quiet.

Vin concentrates on getting to his feet. He can't put his full weight on the bad knee, but at least he can stand. Leaving Chris and Ezra to deal with each other, he charts a course for the sound of hooves stamping the ground impatiently out in the dark.

"Horses're all here," he calls out. "But we should make camp where we are if Ez isn't doin' so good."

He can hear them grumbling at each other. "Nah, he's okay," Chris calls back. "Reckon you c'n guide us home?"

Vin moves a pile of their belongings with his foot. He reaches down and snags his hat, sticks one finger through the hole and nearly laughs again. Two forms are coming at him out of the gloom and they seem to be holding each other upright. There's a break in the fast-moving clouds overhead that frees a watery moonlight long enough to see that Chris and Ezra are about as banged up as Vin is.

Vin clucks in sympathy. "We could get a few hours rest, git goin' first light."

"Well I'm not sleeping out here without my guns," Ezra says.

"Hell, who said anythin' 'bout sleepin'? You c'n take first watch." Larabee is caustic with irritation and worry.

Vin slides a hand down the nose of one of the horses, gives it a calming pat.

"Movin', standin' still ... somethin' gets our scent it won't make no difference."

"You mean cats?"

Vin can't smile because his lip hurts too much, can't even crinkle his eyes. "Critters're as thick as hops out here, Ez."

"Huh," Chris muses, evidently thinking on it, while Ezra mumbles to himself. "Any idea where we are?"

"North," Vin hazards. "They prob'ly brung us straight out the road the Livery's on. Wouldn'ta brung us far. I don't think it's more'n midnight or thereabouts."

The moon flits behind clouds again.

"There's cover back there," Chris says. "Enough. We got provisions?"

Ezra makes one of his expressive noises. "Hardtack and moldy biscuits if I remember correctly."

Chris seems to find that amusing.

Vin does, too.

 

tbc


	3. Chapter 3

In the light of day they all look like hell.

Pasty-faced, unshaven and coated in grey dust.

Ezra's slept for an hour or so since Larabee woke him to make sure, apparently, that he wasn't dead. Which he supposes is what all the poking and grousing at him was for. Vin's just coming to, groggy and punch-drunk, and Chris himself looks like he needed several pounds of steak on his face too many hours ago.

They drink water and nibble reluctantly on stale biscuits tipped into a cloth. None of them has anything to say for a while. Vin leans on a rock and dabs at his swollen eye with two fingers as he chews the dried-up crumbs. Chris scratches at his coming beard. Ezra fiddles with the packs because he doesn't have any cards to keep his hands busy.

"Let's get goin'," Vin says as soon as he's finished. He replaces the lid of his canteen, puts a hand down to push himself up.

"All right to ride?"

Vin limps past Chris with a scowl. "Well I'm sure as hell not stayin' here any longer."

"C'mon, Ezra, shift yaself."

Ezra blinks gritty eyes. He has a pounding headache and his fingertips are tingling. The biscuits have not settled his stomach as effectively as he had hoped.

_Delightful._

For the first time he's glad of the presence of Chris behind him when they get moving. He's glad that they don't ride hard, glad when they stop in shade and he can close his eyes while Vin and Chris fetch water, even though they complain that he's sleeping on the job.

After another couple of hours, Ezra realizes that the headache is no longer emanating from where he hit the boardwalk. It's centered over his left eye, radiates strongly into the area of his scar, reminds him of those first days of wretched consciousness upstairs at Nathan's.

He's afraid of this headache, and that makes him angry.

"Watch yourself, Vin," Chris says when this becomes apparent. "Somethin's rattlin' Ezra's cage."

And Vin laughs a low laugh.

It truly gets wearisome, Ezra thinks, to always be either the object of contempt or the butt of a joke.

They stop again. Ezra knows it's because of him, because he's finding it hard to sit upright. Neither Chris nor Vin challenge him, which he supposes he should be grateful about. They just watch him with a deep suspicion that he could easily misinterpret should he have a mind to and which makes him determined to give them no satisfaction.

_No, sirs. I am not performing for you today._

Night comes on again and that helps a little. The horses are all used to the dark, stay in the middle of the trail. There's only an hour or two when the way seems black as tar through the cliffs and jumbles of a canyon and there's no moon at all. Vin has the rudiments in his saddle-bag to rig up a torch that lasts just long enough.

Progress is pretty slow, too, because Vin's in pain and favoring one side to try and take pressure off his knee. He'll admit it, be honest about the difficulty, but he won't let them do anything. Ezra tries to move ahead a little, allow Vin some time in the slipstream, but Chris growls at him to stay right where the hell he is. It's all becoming a moot point anyhow since, once the torch has extinguished itself, they can hardly see. Lucky they're all accustomed to negotiating the outlying miles into Four Corners at night.

It feels late and still when they finally spy the first of the night fires in the distance.

Late or not, the welcome committee assembles itself pretty quick as they ride in. Town is almost as quiet as it was when they left.

"What the hell?" Buck demands, first to reach them. He catches hold of the leading rein of Chris's horse, lets Larabee grip his shoulder as he slides to the ground with a groan of discomfort. "They have to beat the story out of you?"

"Palmers got off," Chris says, moving to give Vin a hand down.

"They what?"

"Acquitted."

"Ah, shit," Buck says with feeling.

"Nothin'?" Nathan's voice is tinged with disbelief. "Not for the payroll? For the shootin's? For Ezra?"

"Nothin'."

"So ya didn't even need to go," JD says. "You coulda stayed right here and it wouldnta made any difference."

Chris sucks his teeth. "'Course," he says grimly, "if Ezra'd told 'em what we all know to be true, it mighta helped."

"Mr. Larabee, your refrain is becoming tedious." Ezra dismounts, feels the ground is racing up to meet him way too fast and is grateful that someone - he bets on Buck - steadies him. Ezra's keeping his eyes slitted against the light spilling out from the saloon and he's not sure he can handle going inside. If he's even allowed to move, that is.

Yes, the big hand grasping enough of his clothing to pinch his upper arm, is Buck all right.

"Anyone hurt proper? Or you just need hot food and cold beer?" asks Nathan.

"Yeah."

They all know what Vin means.

There's stew on the stove in the saloon's kitchen. Of course. It'll be some recipe of Josiah or Nathan's. As a group they've been self-sufficient from the start, needing no instruction on the many and varied ways they can watch one another's backs. The stew's warm rather than hot, somewhat dried up, and the beer isn't exactly cold, but there's no hesitation when the three of them plump down around a table and Josiah piles plates and glasses in the middle. They are allowed a few minutes to eat in peace before the questions start coming.

"So that defender feller, what he say?"

"Palmers run you outa town?"

"How'd they get away with this?"

"They gonna be headed this way anytime soon?"

"Boys," Chris says eventually. "I don't aim to gift 'em our hardware. We need to go back." He picks at a bit of meat lodged in his teeth with a thumbnail. "But not tonight."

Nathan has been walking around them while they eat, not saying anything, just sizing up the cuts and bruises. He touches a couple of fingers on Chris's cheekbone, tips up Vin's chin and frowns. It is to his credit, Ezra thinks, that neither of them resist him. They just carry on chewing. Vin swallows his last mouthful, wipes the back of his hand over his bottom lip carefully.

"Ezra got a bang on the head," he says.

There's a collective intake of breath. Ezra squints across the table at Vin, outraged at the betrayal but not altogether surprised by it. He feels better for the food, but all he wants is to retire unobserved from the company, wash off some of the grime and lay his head down in the dark. Not engage in fruitless discussion about the condition of his cranium.

"Well shit, that's not good," Buck says.

Nathan returns for another look and Ezra submits, granite-jawed, just spreads his hands to indicate that Nathan could stare all he liked he wasn't going to find anything.

"How you feelin'?"

_Lord preserve us, what is wrong with you people?_

One minute they're following him about like he's a rabid dog they might have to shoot, next they're asking stupid questions.

Ezra could tell them that he feels seasick. That there's a low-level prickling in his ear and his palms are clammy. That a headache is coming and going in waves so strong it's taking all his concentration not to put both arms over his head and whimper. That he fears he's going to be deaf, dumb and blind with pain in a matter of hours.

Unexpectedly, Chris saves him from having to tell them anything. He pitches in, all swagger and defensive bluff.

"We all got knocked three bitchin' ways from Sunday, Nathan, whaddya think? Checked him over on the trail. He kept his seat, talked no more nonsense than usual."

Nathan stops what he's doing, looks faintly offended, like he's been chided for something unfairly. Ezra reflects that none of them are immune from locking horns with Chris Larabee and he can't help a little smirk over his shoulder because, just for this particular few seconds, it's not him.

There's a general scraping-back of chairs. Someone moves to give Vin an arm as he suddenly seems to be staggering, bad knee and good as wobbly as one another. It's a good moment to make a getaway. Nathan is declaring that he needs to bind up the hurt, do something to help Vin sleep and Vin's gone mostly pliant because he obviously feels so bad.

"Lean on me," Josiah says. "And if you don't want what Nathan's got, I'll bring you a bottle of whisky."

Vin's slurring and chuckling like he doesn't know which way is up. Ezra pats him on the back as Josiah and Nathan begin to guide him from the room, then he jams his hat over his eyes, bids them all goodnight and goes upstairs, one hand firmly on the rail. He doesn't know if he's observed. If Buck and JD hadn't gone out to see to the horses, he would have expected Mr. Wilmington to clump up behind him on some ridiculous pretext of having left something in Ezra's room.

He's got as far as sluicing some water over his hands and face from the half-full pitcher under the mirror when there's a tap on the door. Throwing the grubby towel over one shoulder he moves to open it. And lets out a long-suffering sigh.

"Mr. Larabee, as I live and breathe ..."

"Cut your infernal crap, Ezra. Came to give ya this from Nathan."

Chris holds up a little pouch and drops it into Ezra's hand.

"Pot pourri? How thoughtful."

"Ya brew it up for a headache. Nathan says."

"Interesting. I don't have a headache."

"Well if ya did."

Ezra closes his fist around the pouch, feels the contents scrunching against his palm. He knows he walks a line, narrow and flimsy. He knows he is always just a whisker away from disaster, from being of no use to anyone in Four Corners anymore. And that this may be the man who will judge when that moment comes.

"Do leave me alone," he says tiredly.

"I'm goin'."

A mutual understanding lurks between them, that there may be something to discuss but that neither of them are going to attempt it. Chris mutters something as he turns away, moving like a man who may just fall asleep where he stands.

Ezra shuts the door, tosses the pouch so it lands next to the pitcher, skids off the table and drops into the gap behind. He lets the towel fall to the floor, steps over it. Loses his boots and vest, unbuttons his shirt. Then he stands at the window with his eyes closed, pressing the pad of his thumb as hard as he can into the point above his ear where it feels like there's something that might burst.

Eventually he stops, runs his hand through his trail-matted hair. The pain is steady and relentless. It tries his patience, makes everything an effort.

And to be honest, Ezra's a relative stranger to pain. Physical pain, at least.

He vaguely recalls his whole body hurting when he had scarlet fever, aged seven. And he clearly recalls the drag and bite of the dislocated shoulder that Nathan treated in the Seminole village. While he still doesn't appreciate anyone swinging on the weak joint, he finds the occasional flare manageable, particularly with whisky. The bullet wound from Stutts's shot is not a particularly unwelcome memory either, so freely floating had he been on Chris Larabee's praise and approval at the time.

This is all different. This pain is wicked and lies in wait. It's insidious, takes his breath away. Although he might smile at Nathan's sincere optimism on a long-term prognosis, deep down Ezra is convinced that an impact he cannot even recall will haunt him for the rest of his life, then despatch him one day without pity.

The temptation to give in to such a bleak prospect, to weep helpless tears of frustration, is strong, but Ezra likes to think he's stronger. He goes and sits on the side of the bed, thumps the pillow instead.

It's about typical, he thinks, that his Derringer's in the hands of someone else.

Because, if it comes to it, he fully intends to discharge the delicate little piece directly between his eyes.

\----

There are many ills that breakfast, a hot bath and a shave will cure.

Vin's black and swollen kneecap for a start. By the time Ezra reaches the bath-house in the morning, on advice that a bath has been ready prepared, Vin is already there, sunk deep in one tub, bad leg fully immersed, face covered in soap. He looks like he might be dozing and Ezra, fresh suit of clothes over one arm, creeps in to lay claim to his own source of relief.

"Mornin'" Vin says without opening his eyes. "If that's you, Ezra, you c'n swaller ya chat. This is the quiet place."

"Believe me, if I wanted conversation of any kind, I wouldn't come to you."

"Good."

"How's the leg?"

"Fair."

"Are we the first, or has Mr. Larabee already been and gone?"

Ezra dunks a hand into the freshly-drawn and steaming-hot water and swills it around. He's slept well enough that there's a layer of almost giddy abandon over his headache, although the world keeps tilting unexpectedly. Sugared coffee and pancakes slippery with syrup have given him enough bravado to last the morning.

There's a pristine bar of soap sitting on the side of the tub, a rare treat. He examines himself all over for bruises, and there are plenty, but the lucky result of having been knocked out so quickly means that his face has escaped all but a mild contusion along his jaw. "I trust you slept well, my friend." He slides into the water, lets it rise up his chest, feels the steam pooling around his face. A long sigh escapes him. "Oh, my good God, that is exquisite. That is very, very fine."

A grumbled "Shush," comes from the other side of the room.

Ezra submerges his head, wags it a little under the water to try and dislodge some of the grit, and then rises again, sweeping his hair back over his forehead with two hands. Ben Freeman, who runs the bath-house, has come into the room with two more jugs of water and some hair-soap. He grimaces a little at the water on the floor from Ezra's wallow.

"You gents gonna let Jethro do a proper job on ya?"

"Well if by proper job you mean cut mah throat, then no, I don't think so."

Freeman tuts. "He'd only cut ya throat, Mr. Standish, if ya wouldn't stop talkin'."

"I have my razor thank you, Ben."

"As you please."

Vin is smiling when Ben goes out but he still hasn't opened his eyes. The ends of his hair are trailing in the water. He's still there, in the same position, when Ezra is finished with all but the final ablutions. Standing in stockinged feet, pinstripe pants that only appear slightly shiny at the knees if you look closely, crisp poplin shirt and favorite vest, he studies his face in the mirror. It's smooth and damp, pink from the heat. The ever-present rings under his eyes are smudged darker than ever. He draws a brush cautiously through wet hair, lifts it slightly to avoid the scar. Two fingers from each hand check the sharpness of his sideburns. When his boots are on, he empties a still-hot jug of water into Vin's bath, which elicits no more than a slight snore. Then he shrugs on his jacket and goes to collect his hat from Ben, who'd been charged with brushing it until it looked like new.

Coming up the street from the bath-house he meets Buck.

"How ya doin', hoss?" Buck's tone is light but his eyes are sharp.

Ezra just makes an impatient face. "Are we under orders?"

"You're safe. I ain't seen Chris yet."

"Small mercies, Buck, small mercies."

"Hoowhee, Ezra!" JD has appeared at Buck's side. "You smell like... money... piles of it, a fifty thousand dollar jackpot!"

Buck claps both of them on the back. "Now that is a very unkind thing to say, JD. He was just off to grub for nickels and dimes and there you go puttin' an image like that in his head. Why, I think you've just about done ruined his day."

"That's right, you go on and mock me. Just don't expect to share mah winnings when they come. That jackpot will be all mine."

"Hell, Ez, there's no-one in town with a tarnal cent to their name," JD says.

"Bin deader than the grave for days," Buck agrees.

"Well, if you'll allow me to run some errands, I may have to see if I can liven up proceedings." Ezra smiles, feels the tender skin on his jaw stretch. "I'll see you gentlemen over the way shortly."

Buck and JD are smiling, too, in anticipation of amusement and company, and Ezra feels a faint twinge of something in his chest. Although much of the time he wonders how he's managed to get himself into his current predicament (which is far, far away from anything he ever envisaged for himself), sometimes he just cannot believe his good fortune. Despite being the eternal outsider amongst his associates, he does feel he has a place, of sorts. It gratifies him that the tight little duo of Buck and JD let him in so readily. Nothing of the kind has ever happened to him before.

The headache is there or thereabouts. Not like last night, but winding up to jump him sooner or later. So far, Ezra's covered up the worst of such episodes. He can feel them coming like an approaching thunderstorm, hours, sometimes days, in advance, and makes an effort to do what he does best. Conning people. And most of the time, it just about works.

"You all right, Ezra?" Chris demands when he finally puts in an appearance. He's spent half an hour shooting the breeze with Vin and when he spots Ezra he's across the street like a flash.

Ezra's heart pounds against its bars.

"Don't I look all right?" It's become something of a defensive parry.

"Dunno. You look like you just lost the family diamonds."

"How little you know me."

"Well hell yeah. That is part of the problem."

"If I'd lost any diamonds whatsoever would I be standing around discussin' it?"

"Guess not." Chris appraises him some more. "Just ... checkin'"

"Do consider me checked won't you." Ezra drawls it as much as he dares.

Chris, who has more cares on his shoulders than Ezra would like to handle, shoots him a final penetrating look, and moves on. Doubtless, Ezra thinks, to bother another of their number. He has to stand where he is, concentrate on remembering what it is he intended doing, try and order some thoughts so he isn't entirely focused on the steady thumping behind his eyes. He'd hoped, he'd really hoped, that with sleep and food and not much to do, it would fade away, like it mostly did.

Seems not.

Ezra's very afraid that this, when it gets the better of him, will be like nothing he knows how to explain or escape from.

tbc


	4. Chapter 4

Buck's the one who notices first.

It's been one of those strange days. The whole business with the Palmers has gotten Chris's dander up something fierce and Buck knows he's roaming around looking for trouble. It'll make no difference to him that everything seems peaceful. That the sky is a penetrating blue, just a few clouds scooting about. That there's nobody locked up in the jail, only amenable or industrious strangers in town and that, for the most part, his disparate band of brothers are gainfully occupied.

Vin's not occupied, of course. He's been obliged to rest, leg on a cushion. Despite his good sleep in the bath-house he couldn't stop the bad knee swelling up again after he'd hobbled up and down the street a few times trying to walk a bit of mobility back into it.

Nathan's not a problem. He's always making himself useful, and so far Buck's been trying, too, loading beer barrels into the cellar of the saloon with JD.

"You got some spare time, the Lord would like a hand," Josiah observes, putting his head down the cellar trapdoor.

"Well hell, Josiah. Can't the Lord think of anybody else for a change?"

"I understand what a burden it can be, brother Buck, being chosen."

"You just tell 'im He can wait."

"Try Ezra," JD suggests. "He needs somethin' to keep him busy."

Josiah snorts. "The Lord didn't feel like choosing Ezra today."

"What made me so dang popular all of a sudden?" moans Buck when Josiah's head disappears.

JD just snickers.

At noon they go to the saloon, hoping Josiah's not going to be there waiting for them. He's not. Ezra's where he was earlier in the day, still practicing the sleight of hand he'd bamboozled them and a gaggle of ranch-hands with that morning.

God almighty but he looks like crap.

"Buck," Ezra acknowledges as he sits down. There's a restless mania about the way he's manipulating the cards.

Buck's never been one to mince his words, hold back on what he wants to say.

"We-hell, ya look about all done in, bud. I really think you should quit while you're ahead, go take a siesta."

As the cards fan out on the table, Buck glances from Ezra's shaking hands to the empty shot glass and uncorked bottle by his elbow.

"Drinkin' ya dinner again?" Vin questions, limping across and gesturing at JD to pull out a couple of chairs, one for his butt and one for his leg.

"A mere _aperitif_," Ezra responds with a smile. He flexes his fingers, looks as if he's giving himself a stern inner talking-to and then sweeps up the cards one-handed, taps the deck on the table-top. Buck can hardly credit the lightning changes in the man. Now he's handling the cards with complete ease. He even lets his eyes stray out the window without losing the rhythm. "I see Josiah on the war-path." Ezra grins and then cringes. "And Mr. Larabee. Look lively, gentlemen."

Chris comes in quietly, stands over the table. "Hard morning, boys?"

Buck sighs. "You have no idea." He's wondering what he can do to forestall any unpleasantness over the bottle. Ezra, he knows, can just about take a nagging from Nathan over his whisky consumption, but balks when it comes to either Josiah or Chris, who seem to get endlessly exercised by it.

"Hypocrisy!" he's raged on more than one occasion, "nothin' but hypocrisy and cant!"

Even now Chris is chewing the inside of his cheek, reaching for the bottle, not looking at Ezra. He picks it up, hands it silently to Vin, picks up the cork and passes that across, too.

Both Chris and Ezra seem to know exactly what to do and say to send one another into a rage. A more extreme irritation flashes over Ezra's expression than Buck remembers ever seeing before. He braces himself for some kind of explosion, feels JD doing the same. Very deliberately, Ezra picks up his glass, leans one elbow on the table and stretches across to Vin with the glass held ready for a re-fill.

"Bar's closed, Ez," Vin says, not without some sympathy in his voice.

"Wouldn't you say that siesta's lookin' good right about now?" Buck murmurs and he pats the side of Ezra's leg smartly under the table.

Ezra has his mouth open, ready to talk them all into silence, when the batwings rattle open in that way that can only mean one thing.

Someone is coming with bad news.

Ezra's still holding the glass towards Vin, who's obviously decided to be a good lieutenant, and has made a big show of re-corking and holding it out of reach.

"Crowd at the telegraph gettin' antsy, Mr. Larabee."

It's Bob Johnson from the Post Office, his shirt-front stained with ink.

"What they gettin' antsy for?" The tone of voice suggests Chris thinks they're being troublesome for no good reason.

"Waitin' on the stage. Left the tradin' post at Mexican Hat on time ... shoulda been here by now."

"There anything important on that stage?" Ezra says, laying down the glass. He's flipping cards again so rapidly that it makes Buck blink. A frisson runs round the group.

"Just folks' kin," growls Johnson in disgust.

Ezra has the good grace to wince. Buck kind of wishes the fool could develop an empathetic nature, but he supposes it's probably just too late now.

"Ezra," Chris says in a low voice, and now it's a threatening growl, tells them all he's found something to get his teeth into, "if you can't say anythin' helpful, stop flappin' ya goddamn lips."

Ezra tangles gazes with him for a second. He looks angry, too, almost like he's about to snap, because he doesn't like being called out in front of a crowd, and certainly not by Chris Larabee.

The lawmen of Four Corners can just about stay afloat, Buck reckons, if only one of them is mad at a time. More than that, Buck thinks they'd be in trouble, thinks they'd all be rushing to take parts or, more likely, all turn on Ezra. Buck's no philosopher, but he knows pack instinct.

Vin has slumped in weary resignation that he won't be running across to find out any news. He sets the bottle of whisky between his thighs, gives Chris a sidelong glance.

Chris, however, has lost interest in the hedonistic excesses of his men. He walks out of the saloon, collecting up Josiah on the way. Buck gets up to lean on the wall looking over the batwings.

There's about six or seven people gathered outside the telegraph office and there's a general air about them that they want something done and fast. Chris and Josiah take a brisk walk over and Buck knows Chris well enough that the set of his shoulders doesn't look very promising at all.

"You up to ridin', Ez?" Buck asks. "Because it looks like we're ridin'."

"And why wouldn't I be?"

Buck shrugs. He won't make a song and dance about it until there's irrefutable evidence in front of his eyes that Ezra's not right. And there isn't, not quite. Just that strained and weary look, which, he figures, isn't so very much different from the one Vin's wearing. It kind of ticks him off, though, that he may have to wait for Ezra to hit the floor to prove his suspicions.

"They're comin' back," JD reports from the bottom of the steps. Buck can see the disappointed look on the kid's face as Chris passes him without a word, comes back into the saloon.

"We headed out?" Buck asks.

"'m takin' Josiah," Chris tells them. "Vin's in no shape to ride. Ezra neither by the look of him. You're in charge, Buck."

Buck opens his mouth and then shuts it again. JD, of course, isn't so wise.

"Only Josiah? I'll come, Chris."

"You won't," is all Chris says. He frowns in the direction of Ezra briefly, then looks at Buck. "Relyin' on you, cowboy."

Buck is faintly dismayed. Leadership is not his strong suit.

"Guess I ain't got a choice," he says.

Chris looks at him like he's sprouted horns and Buck holds up his hands. ""course, what I mean ta say is, sure thing, Chris."

"Well that don't seem fair."

JD mutters the words just a little too loud and gets an immediate comeback.

"Think I give a shit about fair?"

The batwings shudder as Chris makes his exit. There's the sound of Ezra still steadfastly flipping the cards.

"What I do?" JD asks, aggrieved.

Buck scratches his chin. "Oh Chris just can't help himself, JD. I think we jus' make him mad by walkin' about and breathin'."

"Well don't think you're gonna boss me around, Buck," JD flusters.

That gives Buck a whoosh of fondness and irritation under his ribs. "What the hell else, kid? Now come on, let's get after 'em, make sure they don't go off half-cocked." Buck makes a shooing motion. "Rattle your hocks, Ez. Don't want to be lazy and shiftless all day now, do ya?"

Buck's quite pleased that Ezra looks up at that, laughs wide enough his gold tooth shows.

\----

The happy fact that Josiah's accompanied Chris means that Buck and JD don't have to do any work for him.

Apart from a couple of regular drunks who're annoying folk, and an unexpected brawl that breaks out over a horse at the blacksmith's, most of Buck's day is spent cleaning his gun, arguing with JD and giving Vin a bit of company. When he takes a run through the saloon in the late afternoon, Ezra's not there.

That wouldn't bother Buck except a whole deck of cards is lying on the table like it's been stirred with a stick.

He sends JD on a patrol when dusk is approaching, stops by Nathan's to find him applying a stinking poultice to the inside of an elderly man's mouth. He thinks to himself that although he'd trust Nathan Jackson to tend to most parts of him, his teeth might not be one of them.

"You eatin'?" he asks, realizing too late that the question won't help keep the patient calm.

Nathan doesn't seem to be enjoying this, either. "I'll be down," he says evenly. "We doing good?"

"We sure are. Should really be me in charge all the time."

"Huh. Well they've bin gone long enough I figure there's something nasty coming down the trail."

"I like how you're always cheerful," Buck says.

"That's me."

Nathan's patient squawks wildly at that point, and Buck retreats.

He and Vin are halfway through their steaks when JD strolls in. Nathan joins them a few minutes later. There are times when one of them eats elsewhere or alone, but, without homes to go to, they mostly keep regular hours at the restaurant.

"Seen Ezra?" Buck asks.

"He was takin' a constitutional about three." Nathan plops into a chair, turns his face towards the kitchen, points a finger at Buck's plate.

"You mean all that stompin' up and down outside like he had bellyache?" Vin asks. He's got his fork in his fist, stabs a piece of meat. "I saw that too."

"He all right?" Nathan wonders out loud.

"It was a pile 'a shit," Vin says, thrusting the fork in his mouth.

"Come again?"

Vin speaks through his food. "The trial. The beatin' we took. Pile 'a shit. Wouldn't blame him for bein' on edge."

"Well, we shouldn't let him go to ground f'too long," Buck says. "More'n my life's worth to let him get roostered when Chris might be back at any minute with his pants on fire."

"You think that's what he's doing?" JD asks with interest.

"He's not bin parted from that dang bottle since breakfast," Buck says and feels Nathan's eyes turn upon him. "Hell, Nathan, you know what he's like. Half the time it's just for show."

"We should go look for him," Nathan says.

Buck gives it until the hour that Ezra might be expected to turn up at the saloon for a nightcap, which, depending on his luck and present company, might last most of the night. There's no sign.

"Not in his room," JD reports, coming down the stairs three at a time. "His jacket's hangin' on a chair." He hikes his brows. "He had a bottle of whisky up there with him."

"Dang it, Ezra, where you at?" Buck mutters angrily. "Come on, JD, let's do another sweep. Where's Nathan?"

"Out lookin' last I saw."

"'kay, Vin?"

Vin's resigned. "I'll holler."

Buck and JD take the town at something of a gallop. Short of banging on folks' doors they search everywhere that's accessible, including places they wouldn't expect Ezra to be at all. His horse is where it should be and none of the livery nags are missing.

"Could he've walked off out of town, fallen down?" JD suggests. "Maybe we shoulda gone lookin' while it was still light."

"We'll go anyway," Buck says. He scans the dark street, hoping as he has been all evening, to suddenly see a flash of creamy white shirt, a characteristic graceful stride materializing out of the shadows. There's nothing of the kind, but his eye lights on somewhere they haven't visited.

"Let's try the church, whaddya think?"

"Well I don't know, Buck. Seems like a waste of time." It was certainly true that Ezra was not the most religious man among them.

"We checked damn near everywhere else, JD."

They head on over, up the steps, swing the doors open and step inside. It's only a small place, but it still has that atmosphere of deep quiet and calm that makes both of them suddenly start moving in an entirely different way. Like they're being watched.

JD peers into the gloom and then reaches a hand to snag Buck's sleeve.

"What the ...?"

Ezra's sitting in the back pew, bent over his clasped hands. It may be dark as sin in the church but it's plain he's not praying. It's somehow plain he only got as far as that spot before he had to sit down.

"Ezra?" Buck moves a few steps forward, still not sure if he's interrupting something important.

He slips into the pew and moves down it until he's right next to the hunched form. Carefully he sits, casually puts his hands between his knees and leans, head turned very slightly.

"Ezra?"

A hiss, like he's been burned. It shocks them. Sounds like the noise has broken through several layers of control. The hunch becomes more marked. As Buck gets used to the dark, he can make out that Ezra's got both hands in fists, pressing the knuckles painfully hard into his forehead just above each eye.

"Feelin' bad?"

Buck realizes this is a nonsensical opening gambit, seeing as Ezra looks and sounds in piss-poor shape, but he has an idea that distraction might be one of the only options open to him.

Ezra doesn't reply. He seems to be bracing against some tremendous force that they can't see. JD is beginning to get nervous. He wants to do something. Buck can feel him jigging about on the spot so he holds up a calming hand.

"What can we do for ya, Ez? Want us to fetch Nathan?"

Still no reply. Ezra clearly can't trust himself to speak, even to move. Buck twists slightly, looks over his other shoulder at JD, jerks his head at the door. When the door slaps shut Ezra rocks forward slightly, then goes still again. He inhales, holds the breath, lets it out through his teeth. Buck's palms feel sweaty.

"Think maybe you should come lie down," he suggests. "How's that sound?"

There is a half snort of what could be derision. Ezra keeps up the pressure of his fists against his skull. Buck sends his eyes skyward, a bit like Josiah does before making any kind of move he thinks might be foolish. Then he slowly reaches out to curl his fingers around Ezra's arm just below the wrist.

"Now, you gonna let go? Ya need to be kind to ya head, Ezra, 'staken some harsh treatment - ya gonna screw ya fist right through. Come on now, let go."

Ezra doesn't resist exactly, but Buck still can't get the fist down. He uncurls his fingers, lays the hand on the satin back panel of Ezra's vest. The material is stretched taut across the shoulderblades, almost like sheet metal. Buck can feel a kind of vibration in the space between them, senses a fine tremor coming off the dark sillhouette. He sits right where he is, not moving, or saying anything else until the door crashes open behind them again. Ezra actually groans at the sound, stiffens anew like the vibration has traveled all the way up his spine, an electric shock snapping at the ends of his nerves. Buck winces and holds up one finger of his other hand, signaling for quiet.

There's just the sound of someone catching their breath, then JD's voice says very quietly, "Nathan's out."

""Kay," Buck says calmly. And then, "Damnit!" He pulls distractedly at a corner of mustache. "Don' reckon Ezra here would've paid much mind to him anyhow. You and me need to get him somewhere more comfortable, JD, see if we can find a way to ease what's hurtin'."

"His head," JD says.

Buck lifts his chin, scratches a few fingers down his neck, just for patience. "I'm gettin' that, kid."

JD swallows, moves up close behind the pew. His hand, independent of his brain, Buck thinks, wavers in the air over the top of Ezra, aiming to make contact.

Buck slaps it away.

Ezra's posture doesn't change.

"Shoot me," he grinds out suddenly, and then his breath hitches. There's a silence. The fists push hard against his skull again, knuckles grinding out tiny circles. "Stop ... stop ... _stop_."

"I ain't shootin' you, Ezra." Buck hopes to God he sounds calmer than he feels.

Another long silence, then that grinding voice again. "So leamy ... _alone_."

"I don't think we will."

A choked sound of distress. Buck can tell the pain's mounting, is beyond what Ezra can handle. He wishes he'd just quit trying to hold it all in.

"Jesus, Buck," says JD, panicked. "What can we do? There must be something we can do."

"Let's try movin' him into Josiah's room, get him on the bed."

"Don' touch me," Ezra whispers. "Don' you touch me."

"Aw, c'mon, Ezra. You can't just sit there drillin' your fists into your brain. You gotta lie down, let us get you somethin' cool for ya head. That sounds good, don't it?"

Buck moves both hands, locks them fast round Ezra's wrists and pulls. This time Ezra's fists come away easily. Maybe Buck's cajoling has worked, maybe Ezra just doesn't have the strength to resist anymore. JD's shunted himself in the other end of the pew and he gets a hand round Ezra's waist, begins to haul upwards. It's not an easy maneuver, in the confined space, in the dark. A few steps across the stone floor Ezra stops being amenable and freezes. JD has hold of a clutch of Ezra's shirt, feels his ribs suck in, stomach muscles tensing.

They practically drag him the rest of the way, through the door, and toss him onto Josiah's spartan cot with more urgency than gentleness.

"Roll him," Buck breathes. "And find somethin', JD ... shit, anythin' he can upchuck into." He slaps Ezra's cheek and doesn't even really know why. Feels furious with the man for scaring him so. "Jesus, Ez, you should really learn to eat proper meals if you're gonna be pourin' neat whisky down your throat all day. It'll burn like the fires of hell comin' up."

JD's rooting around amongst Josiah's things. "Think that's what this is?" he asks. "Too much whiskey?"

Buck shoves a place for his backside on the cot, gets a grip on the back of Ezra's neck, gestures for whatever JD's found. Not before time. No sooner has JD transferred a tin pail into Buck's outstretched hand than Ezra's upper body snaps forward so violently he catches the rim of the pail with his chin. There's a growl of futile resistance before he spews up his guts, the sound echoing off the metal with painful clarity.

"Awright," Buck says, voice pinched, "Awright, it's awright."

The sound of whatever's being purged slaps repeatedly against the tin sides of the pail. Reminds Buck of those bad days at Nathan's after Ezra woke up. How he could hardly blink without nausea rolling right over him. How it came as close to killing him as the blood loss and fever had done. Buck can feel fingers clawing his knee. After a few desperate minutes, Ezra hacks, spits up with a noise of revulsion that says more than half a page of his usual yammer would, and manages to shove the pail away from his face.

"Well all right then," the big man says, pleased to feel how much fight's left. But then Ezra brings his fist up again, thumps it so hard against his head that JD shouts in alarm.

"Shit," Buck mutters. "Easy now, Ez, that ain't gonna do no good." He turns distractedly to JD. "No, kid, this ain't too much whisky. This is Gabe Palmer. This is what that cowardly sonofabitch did. I need your help now, you hear? I need you to take this away and clean it out, I need some light, a cloth and some water. Cold as you c'n get it."

"I'll be right back," says JD, "don't you worry none, Ezra." Buck's proud of him, proud that he'll do all this without a complaint. He doesn't think Ezra's listening though.

"Jus' keep real still, pard," Buck's trying to tell him when JD returns, sets a small lamp down on the floor by the cot and a big pitcher on the table. Buck hears the sloshing sound of cloth in water, the steady trickle as JD wrings it out. He picks up the lamp, raises it cautiously to get his first clear look at Ezra's face.

"For Christ's sake," Ezra says, twisting away from the light, elbows coming up to cover his eyes. It might be the first time either JD or Buck have heard him say such a thing.

Buck fields the move, sweeps the lamp in an arc, long enough to see Ezra's pale as wax, how his jaw is locked. "Well hell," he says, lightly as possible. "Gotta tell you, you ain't lookin' quite as sharp as usual, hoss." He puts the lamp down again. "Oh no you don't." Ezra seems not to know what he's doing anymore, can't even get his fists to his skull, has both forearms crossed haphazardly on top of his head like he'd crush himself with them if he had the strength. Buck clenches his teeth, wrestles the arms down, uses one big hand to trap both wrists in a bruising grip and holds out the other for the cloth. "Try this," he says, using the flat of his free hand to mold it around Ezra's forehead from one side to the other. ""snot much, I know. Just lie quiet ... for Pete's sake, Ezra ... stop fightin' me. And you c'n throw up what you like, I ain't a bit fussed. So there now."

"Is it helpin'?" JD asks after a minute.

There's a war of attrition going on. Buck's not sure who's winning. JD wrings out the cloth a few times, and Buck slaps it back on Ezra's head, all the while holding on to his wrists like grim death, jamming them hard against the metal sides of the cot every time he feels them attempt to jerk free. Ezra won't give it up, either, and Buck looks sick to the stomach.

"I dunno, kid," he admits shakily, "but it's goddamn killin' me."


	5. Chapter 5

At some ungodly hour in the middle of the night Ezra manages to lift up his head.

He gets on an elbow, pats Buck vaguely and says, "Enough. That's enough."

Thirty minutes later he falls into a messy daze in his own bed.

JD doesn't quite know how he and Buck managed it. Isn't sure at what point they finally decided the worst was over and Ezra had enough wits about him that they could try and get him up and out of Josiah's. Certainly he was sitting up, was talking again. JD's as sure as he can be that the three of them had a rather troubling conversation on the way over to the saloon, in which Ezra seemed almost inhumanly lucid given his recent condition, and insisted the whole incident had to be forgotten.

Forgotten, for chrissake.

JD's far from happy that they seem to have agreed, but he takes Buck's lead, figures maybe it's okay, if only to keep Ezra calm. Calm seems like a good idea.

In between shuttling cups of coffee back and forth, JD's been keeping the night watch and avoiding telling Vin, who won't go to bed, what's been going on. Nathan's still out. Must be birth or death, Vin says.

JD re-fills Buck's cup, climbs the stairs to Ezra's room.

Buck's perched on the side of the bed, one big paw on the crown of Ezra's head. He doesn't move it even when JD comes right in. Ezra's practically face down, one cheek sunk deep in the pillow, his hands jammed in an uncomfortable and highly defensive-looking tangle under his chin. Although his eyes are tight shut he doesn't look a bit peaceful, just kind of wrung dry, like he's been in a fight. One he's more or less prepared to leap up and start again, if necessary. Buck's said over and over that he didn't know if he should have done it - held Ezra down so fierce - but he couldn't stand to see him pounding his own skull a minute more.

Buck looks wrung dry himself.

JD nudges him. "Here ya go, Buck. Keep your strength up." He lowers into a chair across the room, leans forward to peer at Ezra. "He don't look good."

Buck brings the coffee to his lips and croaks, "Looks a whole lot better'n he did," into the cup before he drinks.

"Think his head's still hurtin' him?"

Buck swallows several mouthfuls, makes a face as if he thinks maybe this was a cup of coffee too far. "Shit, kid. I think his head's always hurtin' him. He just won't say."

"Well all right then. What we gonna do about it?" JD asks.

Buck doesn't hesitate. "What he asked."

JD doesn't like it one bit, not now he knows that Buck wasn't just stringing Ezra a line. "You sure, Buck?"

Buck's wearing one of those faces. A this-is-a-lesson-in-life face. JD hates it, even though he usually gets to hear something he needs to remember.

"I am a long damn way from being sure, JD, but see ... reckon he's got his reasons. I know ... it's Ezra and you never can tell what the heck's goin' on with Ezra ... but see ... he's our pard, ain't he?"

Buck sounds a little surprised by this notion himself.

"I guess." JD leans back. "It's just ... well it wasn't a triflin' little thing, Buck. He was nearly out of his mind. That's not somethin' I can forget about."

Bucks lifts the hand from Ezra's head, rubs his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. "Listen. I know we didn't swear a blood oath or nothin', JD, but he asked us to keep our traps shut. So I, for one, am gonna keep my trap shut."

"Would he do it for us?"

JD actually wishes he hadn't said that, soon as the words are out. He really doesn't want to get into the trust conversation because it never seems to go well, not for anybody.

"Well that depends now, don't it? On whether he thought we were worth it."

"What if ...?"

"Shit!" Buck snaps. "Don't what if me, JD!"

Ezra mutters, flings one arm out, shifting like he's about to wake up or is trying to throw Buck off the bed. Buck rises carefully to his feet, lays his cup down on the nightstand. He beckons JD to the door.

"Let's leave him be."

"He might get sick again."

Buck's smile is faint. "Don't you go worryin' about that. He's a big boy, I think he can throw up by himself."

"Damn nearly choked before."

JD feels the warm hand of Buck grip the back of his neck, shake it a little. On a normal day he might fight him off, but JD's tired and miserable. After this evening he's getting an idea of why the others are so riddled with fury about all this. Of how violence changes lives and of how those changes can't always be undone.

They're just crossing the dim interior of the saloon downstairs when they hear the sound of riders coming in.

"You sure you cleaned up at the church?" Buck says as they get outside.

Chris and Josiah are visible outside the jailhouse where Vin has been sitting what seems like all day, all evening and all night.

"Josiah won't know any different," JD assures him. "Lessen he's particularly attached to that bucket."

"An' it's bin all quiet here, right?" Buck continues as they head across the dark street.

"We've bin through this, Buck ... I'm not stupid."

"We're both stupid, JD."

Chris looks round as the two of them hop up on the boardwalk. "Evenin', boys."

"What's goin' on?" Buck asks.

"Driver and one passenger dead." His voice is neutral but JD knows the man well enough by now, knows that he takes such things to heart.

"Anyone we know?"

"Brother of Bill Dunnett, was comin' out to see his farm. We bin over there already." Chris purses his lips, exhales through them. "Two more shook up but good. They've bin taken into Eagle Bend, got kinfolk there."

"Any sign of who did it? Where they went?"

Chris just looks at Vin, then looks away again. JD figures that means they couldn't read the tracks well enough, needed Vin. Vin knows that, too. He's gnawing on his bottom lip.

"Got these," Josiah says, unfastening something from the side of his saddle. It's a couple of gun-belts and a long rifle which he holds out towards Vin. "Met a deputy from Ridge City out there. Whole world's on the move."

Vin heaves himself out of his chair, shuffles up close, takes the Winchester, a spark in his eye. Ezra's belt and Remington are slung over Josiah's arm, the shoulder holster and Colt too. Josiah's holding the Derringer rig in his gloved hand. It looks a little misshapen.

"Seems the Palmers have left," Chris supplies. "Split up, lit out like they weren't plannin' to come back."

"Out the territory?"

Chris shrugs.

"Was it them?" JD asks. The question has been bubbling on his lips since Chris first spoke.

Nobody answers, almost as if he hasn't asked the question. JD could spit. They heard him all right. They even had thoughts about what he asked, for sure, but they all decided, like they often did, that he wasn't worth answering. JD knows better than to complain about this when they're all balancing on the edges of some trouble. Buck would slap him upside the head and Chris would give him that look. The look that generally made grown men quail.

"All quiet?" Chris asks instead.

Buck nods, doesn't elaborate.

Larabee rubs his forehead with the flat of his hand, takes a hunted look around. "Don't care for what's out there," he says. "We need a rollin' watch, startin' now."

JD wants to say, "it's that bad?" but something stops him.

Vin hefts the Winchester over one shoulder. "I'll finish the night," he says.

"You sure?"

"Don't need m' goddamn knee to ring a bell."

"Fair enough." Chris nods at Josiah, simultaneously thanking and dismissing him. Then he addresses JD and Buck. "Get to bed, need you fresh." He narrows his eyes. "Nathan?"

"Out."

"Huh." Chris steps off the boardwalk, takes up the reins of his horse, walks a few steps away and then turns his head. "Ezra?"

"Sleepin' like a baby."

"Huh," Chris says again, keeps walking.

Josiah ghosts JD a toothy smile, unwinds the leading rein from the hitching post and holds it out. "When a man's spectin' trouble, he don't always like to chat."

"What?"

Buck tuts. "What he means is, take his horse, JD, and don't go askin' stupid questions."

\----------

Whole town's twitchy next day, and the next few days to come.

Word spreads fast that Bill Dunnett's brother, a father of three from Denver, is dead, shot by robbers. Some folks want to go after them. Others just want Larabee and his men to get out there and do whatever the hell it is they're paid for.

"Sheriff in Eagle Bend's raisin' a posse," Chris tells Mary Travis, who, as ever, seems to be the conduit for the town's feelings.

"Are we under threat?"

"Always."

Larabee's monosyllabic conversation gets under her skin. She has to work hard to keep her temper with him sometimes. "Yes, I know. But ... more than usual?"

"Reckon." He scowls at her. "You don't need to go tellin' everybody that."

Mary supposes she can't be the only person in town aware that there's suddenly always a lookout posted on the roof of Watson's Hardware. That Larabee's men have shucked off all signs of relaxed bonhomie.

"Please tell me what's going on."

"Lot of men ridin' with the Palmers, Mary, all of 'em rootless, nothin' to go back to. Until we know for sure they're not comin' here, we can't let our guard down."

"Why would they come?"

Chris's eyes rove from the church at the top of the street, down past the businesses and Bank, the saloon and newspaper office, down to the Hotel. Mary knows what he's looking at. Four Corners is busy, but it's still only half a town. There's just as much not working as there is working, just as much insecurity as contentment. There's a smattering of boarded up store-fronts, half-built buildings alongside those actively trading. For some, every day is still a struggle.

"This is just the kind of place they could run over."

"Even with seven gunmen to get past?"

He smiles, that thoughtful smile that suggests something grimly humorous has just occurred to him.

"Even."

Mary feels a familiar flutter of anxiety. Seems like no sooner has some progress been made, something else comes along and undoes it. She sometimes fears that Four Corners will never be the place she wants it to be, will never be the community that Billy will remember as a background to his childhood. It'll always just be a name, that wild and dusty burg his Mama insisted on staying, while he got an education and put his roots down elsewhere.

For the moment, when she sees some combination of Larabee's men meeting up on a corner, talking in low voices, passing each other going on and off patrol, she wants to run up and demand what's happening. She doesn't. She concentrates on her work, hopes stories of mercantile success and upcoming nuptials will make the Clarion a good distraction.

Nothing passes her by, though. They're covering an ever wider area when they go out in their pairs, she can tell. Mr. Tanner's spyglass glints in the sunlight on the roof. Mr. Standish goes out back of town and shoots spots off a deck of cards pinned to a tree like a clock-face. They stop meeting up in the saloon, start meeting up in the jail instead, like they don't want anyone to overhear what they're discussing.

"They make me nervous," someone says to her. "You seen all the ammunition they got lined up in there?"

"I really think it's preferable to the alternative," she soothes. But she's not completely sure. She keeps to herself the intelligence that Mr Dunne and Mr Wilmington spotted a group of men circling north of town at a distance of ten miles. And that Mr Larabee and Mr Jackson saw the same group, or maybe another one, over to the east.

The next time a patrol rides in, heads straight for the jail and bangs shut the door, she feels her patience wearing thin.

Mary Travis knows perfectly well that men hate to be interrupted when they're having a pow-wow. She also knows that the less she pushes, the less she'll learn. So she marches over the street and walks right in without knocking.

Josiah and Nathan, the two who've just ridden in, are showing Mr. Larabee something on a big map pinned to a wall. They turn around and stare as she enters.

"Mary," Chris says, controlled, calm and everything in between.

She takes in the guns lined up on the desk, the fact that Vin has his mare's leg open on his knee, is cleaning it while JD waits to hand him some bullets. The hardware on display makes her heart thump anxiously, makes her press a hand to the base of her throat. Chris doesn't miss the action.

"Precautions," he says.

Fear makes her irritated. "It feels like we're a fortress town, like we're doing nothing so much as sitting here waiting to be attacked. People are feeling threatened by all this."

"That's why we're headin' out," Larabee announces. "Seen 'em comin' a bit nearer every day. Time we posted a warning."

"Nearer? How much nearer?"

"Near enough," Vin Tanner tells her.

"You're not leaving us unprotected I hope?"

"Josiah and Nathan will be here."

Mary wonders how Chris makes his decisions. How he calculates how many he needs to "post a warning", as he says, how many to leave behind. She watches Mr Standish slide his gun in and out of the shoulder holster under his jacket.

"Anythin' else?"

She knows it's nerves that makes her wish Mr. Larabee would soften his tone.

"No. Just --"

His voice is suddenly understanding. He looks her directly in the eye. "We're always careful, Mary."

Mary turns to go, hears Ezra Standish mutter, "We are?" and Buck Wilmington's answering snort.

\----------

It takes a long gallop at full tilt and one hell of a lot of bullets, but Chris thinks they get their message across in the end.

The warning is posted.

A wave of very temporary euphoria races over them when they finally slow down. Chris lets them enjoy it for awhile, listens to them as he stays atop his mount, scanning the horizon east and west.

"I hit one," Vin says. He may be grinning like a loon but his leg's still troubling him and he's as white as a ghost.

"Them?" Bucks asks.

"That was Burton Palmer at the head. Big feller in the white hat."

"Helluva hat."

"More of 'em than we saw out here before."

"I counted twelve," says Ezra. He rubs an eye. "Unless I was seeing double."

"They could've joined up. Maybe we just seen the last of 'em. They sure were on the run."

Chris is moving off before they have time to discuss it anymore.

He's very afraid that the only thing to convince him they won't see the Palmers again is if he actually watches them go down one by one, with his own eyes, and not get up again. He knows such a thing would cost them dear.

Six miles back towards town they stop to let the horses drink, tether them up in the shade of clump of silver spruce. Chris won't stop looking behind them.

Vin's got his eye on a high vantage point to their right, a jumble of rocks and cliffs several hundred yards away from the trees across sage-speckled flats. There's another one, not so high, just behind it. When he limps off towards it, Chris motions to Ezra, who's nearest, to go with him.

Not five minutes after the two of them disappear, a rifle shot cracks out high above and echoes off the two sets of rock. Chris, Buck and JD have their guns out in a second, begin across the flats, take the lower slopes at a run.

They're just about out of sight of the spruces when a volley of gunfire clatters the rock at their feet, sends them scrabbling for the only cover there is.

"Up!" Chris yells, "Up, go up!"

They scramble.

"Where the blazes are they?" Buck mutters.

There's a sustained burst of fire from two or three different directions, sending them low under shelves and spits of rock, none of them safe enough. Higher above them Chris can see Vin's already pinned down. There's no sign of Ezra.

"On the ridge!" Vin shouts. "They c'n take a clear shot. Get yourselves the hell up here!"

And Vin starts shooting.

They charge through a hail of gunfire which sends shards of granite raining down on them. It's coming from more than one direction, rends the air like a Gatling gun.

For a long time after he gets into cover, Chris doesn't move. Not a muscle.

All he can think is how they're outnumbered. Completely cornered. How it might be his fault. How he knows four good men will die here by his side unless he can think of a way out of this.

Not a chance.

A sick moment of hopelessness washes over him.

He remains flattened against the rock-face, gun arm crossed over his chest, breathing as shallowly as he can to avoid getting any more dust in his lungs. He can feel blood sliding down one cheek, the sting of flayed skin. After a few minutes he slithers slowly down until he's in a crouch. Only then does he turn his head to see.

First he locates Vin again, in a similar position to himself but a little higher, bad leg flat.

"How many?" His voice is cracked and wheezy.

"Ten? Twelve? Maybe more." Vin looks up from re-loading and Chris can see he's pale. He looks clear-eyed, though, focused on the job at hand.

Chris feels that balance again, swinging him back on an even keel.

He twists a little to find Buck.

Buck's belly down on a ledge slightly to his left, both hands on his pistol as it peeks over the edge of the rock. He looks exposed and Chris grimaces at him, makes a hand signal to get him to shift. JD's a few yards behind, squatting down behind a rocky outcrop. There's room in his little space for Buck and Chris flaps his hand again, fiercely this time.

"Move, Buck!" he hisses, "or you'll get your fat head shot off."

Buck moves backwards with difficulty, trying to keep as flat as he can. When he's near enough for JD to grab him, Chris twists again to home in on Ezra.

"No," he finds himself murmuring as a flash of green marks Ezra out, shoulder hunkered into a curve of granite on the other side of a cleft in the rocks, below which is a thirty foot drop. "No, no, not now ... damnit, Ezra, not now."

Ezra has his Remington in one hand. The other hand - damn it, god damn it - has tight hold of the side of his head.

Vin seems to guess what Chris is looking at, just by the expression on his face. "That Ezra? He in trouble?"

Chris doesn't answer him, instead hollers across, "Ezra! You with us?"

Ezra jumps slightly at the voice, whips his hand away. He locks eyes, waves his Remington rather feebly, gives the ghost of an inappropriate smile.

_Yeah, you keep smiling, you sonofabitch. I am not losing you out here, Ezra, I swear to God._

Chris grits his teeth.

"How far to the horses, Vin?"

Vin leans out a little. "Hundred yards, no cover." He shakes his head. "Go out there now they'll cut us down."

"Maybe. Maybe not." Chris motions to the flat square of rock just past JD and Buck's position. It's sheltered on three sides, has just enough room for them all. "Need to parley, boys."

There's a flurry of shots as they move, feels like half a mountain falls before they all get to the spot Chris has indicated. Vin, sweating some by now, presses into one wall where he can keep an eye on the high vantage point that their unseen enemy gained ten minutes ago. There's no-one visible there, but Vin has his rifle on his shoulder, ready. Ezra slithers in next to him. The other three take the opposite wall. It seems they're out of the line of fire where they are, but they're completely trapped. All of them are breathing heavily.

"Stay here, we'll run out of ammo," Chris says. "We have to get to the horses. Josiah and Nathan'll need our help. There's another whole battalion out there. Shit, maybe more than one." He shakes his head at them, disbelieving. "Fuck, we don't know how the hell many there are."

"Love your plan, pard." Buck re-loads as he speaks. "Problem is, no-one's making it all the way over there. We'll be shot down before we get ten paces. And Vin can't run anyway. And Ezra ..."

"And Ezra is just fine," Ezra says.

"We're gonna run for it, boys." Chris feels four pairs of eyes jump to him. "One at a time."

He lets this sink in, can practically hear the cogs turning.

"That means someone's gotta go last," Buck says slowly.

"It sure does, Buck."

Another beat of silence.

"I have the rifle," Vin says. "I can't run. I'll go last."

"We'll see." Chris is non-committal. "JD, you're first up. Reckon you can reach the horses if we give you cover?"

"I ..." JD looks to Buck for back-up and gets none. He wants to stay and fight, Chris knows.

"You run fast, kid. I need you to get to your horse and get to town. And listen good ... you don't wait to give cover for anyone else, you just ride, got that?"

JD peers down between the rocks at the open space, looks right along it towards the silver spruces.

"If you get that far in one piece, kid, their fire won't reach you. So you gotta run like hell, you hear me, JD?" Buck has his hand on JD's shoulder. He's staring him intently in the eyes.

"Yeah, I hear you."

"Let us get in position, okay? I'll give you a sign. And don't worry about shootin', you just worry about runnin'. We'll take care of the rest." Chris give him a nod. "See you back in town, JD."

JD nods back. He holsters his gun, gives a quick look round. Chris jerks his head.

"Hold ya breath, boys. Time to go back out."

A cloud of dust is kicked up by the volley of bullets that greets their move from the back of the rocks. Chris feels the air whoosh out of his lungs as he slides the last couple of feet and slams his back against the cliff face behind him. He waits until he gets JD clearly in his sights. The boy's already a target, his bobbing head not quite tucked in far enough.

_Shit._

_What a fuckin' mess._

\---

It's time to run.

JD's afraid to run, but maybe he's more afraid to stay where he is.

Chris trusts him to make it, and to be able to ride fast. Maybe faster than any of them, excepting maybe Buck, but there's no chance Buck would leave a fire-fight before him. JD's heart's pumping fit to bust and he hasn't even started to run yet. He can't afford to think about what comes after him. He just has to think about running. Putting one foot in front of the other, quicker than he ever has in his life. JD suddenly decides that perhaps he shouldn't even be thinking of it like that, 'cause that would mean he was thinking too much. He needs to go on instinct, like Vin would. Brute courage, like Chris would. Or a prayer, like Josiah would.

_Hell on a stick._

"Go," mouths Chris and JD feels the spring uncoil in his back and legs.

He doesn't know what propels him in the end. All he knows is that four sets of guns pounding out bullets behind him makes one hell of a noise and that his friends are doing enough to at least keep the assault at bay. The incoming fire is sporadic, skitters once or twice just ahead of his feet.

Ten yards from the horses he hears a whine, feels something white-hot scythe through the back of his hand. His flat-out sprint slows, momentum driving him forward. There's another skittering of fire in the ground behind him, making the horses jostle and stamp.

I'm hit, he thinks.

_Damn, Buck, I'm hit._

It's not easy untethering his mount one-handed. All the reins have got tangled as the horses have pushed each other nervously around. Blood runs down his sleeve, but adrenaline has swept his mind clear.

Ride, you sonofabitch, he thinks, surprising himself with the vehemence of his own silent oath.

\----

"He hit?"

Buck's twisting about from one side to the other trying to see.

"Vin, he hit?"

"Maybe. Can't tell. But he didn't go down, he's on his horse. Think he made it."

There's just a dust-cloud now, indicating where JD's got to. The gunfire from across the way has stopped again and they've all slid and jumped back into the parley.

Buck gives a nervous laugh. "Hell," he says, distinctly rattled, "I can't run that dang fast. I'd better stay right where I am."

Chris is looking up between each re-load. They can see him figuring out who goes next.

"I can't run," Vin says. "But I can shoot."

"Buck ... Ezra ..."

Buck opens his mouth to say something, but Ezra waves him quiet. He's laid down his Remington, has dug something out of a pocket.

"I suggest we toss for it, Mr Wilmington. It's only fair."

Buck grimaces, looks to Chris, who just shrugs. Saves him deciding who's the better shot and getting it wrong.

"Heads," Buck snarls.

The coin flips up, comes down next to Vin, who gets a boot on it.

"Heads it is."

Buck gives Ezra a self-satisfied smirk. "Sorry, hoss. That means I get to stay."

"Nuh-uh," Chris says. "You win, Buck. That means you get to go."

Ezra picks up his Remington, flips it open, spins the barrel defiantly.

\----

"This is shit," says Chris with feeling.

"Don't you give me that look." Vin's sour as a lemon. "You need my gun. I can't run, Chris. I ain't runnin'."

They think they've just seen Buck hit. The big man can sure run, but he went way off course the last ten or twenty yards, like something had practically lifted him off his feet. It's a shooting gallery out there, and they're the ducks. They know they've seen Buck ride away but he was sprawled forward over the horse's neck and there's a tense silence when they get back out of range and into their little stone prison.

It's plain who Chris thinks should go next.

Ezra's breathing a little too fast. Coughed up so much dust he's been bent double for the last thirty seconds.

"Ezra?" demands Chris.

"Ah'm fine."

"Don't look fine."

"Now you listen to me, Mr Larabee." Ezra's voice is surprisingly clipped and clear. "There are two alternatives now. Either Mr Tanner stays and covers one of us. Or he goes now while he has two men at his back. One way or another, he has to run." They're in a tight enough spot that Ezra won't flower up his words.

"I ain't goin'"

"Vin, listen. Ezra's right. You ain't got no chance if you stay. Go. And you don't wait around for us, y'hear? You just ride."

"Aw hell," says Vin.

"Oh yes," agrees Ezra. "Hell, fire and damnation."

\----

Chris realizes that JD was the only one who didn't argue.

He hopes he'll gets a chance to tell the kid how much he appreciates that.

His shirt is sticking to him back and front. His eyes are full of grit and his ears are ringing.

Vin made it. They're pretty sure. Saw him sprinting in a crazed zig-zag over the ground. Saw his leg give way, sending him into a snake-like crawl the last few yards. They saw him make the trees but got forced back out of sight before they could tell if he was on his horse.

"He wasn't hit," Chris says. "He musta made it."

"They were closer that time," Ezra observes. "They've come down off the ridge."

"Yep. Time to go. You ready to run?"

Ezra seems to be having trouble keeping his eyes open, never mind re-loading. Never mind running.

"I don' think that's a good idea."

"It's a terrible idea, Ezra, but it's all we got. I'll do my best, but you gotta run like the fuckin' wind."

Ezra seems to find that amusing. He's holding himself upright by jamming a shoulder into the cliff-face and one hand pats his pocket.

"Toss for it, Mr Larabee?"

"No chance."

"Come now." Ezra leans his head on the stone for a second, eyes closed. Then he seems to jerk himself awake. "My whole life is a gamble. Indulge me." The coin appears in his hand.

Chris stares at it.

"Why can't you just do as I say? Why can't you ever just do ... as ... I ... say?"

Ezra's head drops back against the granite again. His tooth flashes. "You are an undeniably fast draw, Chris. But I am an undeniably good shot."

Chris feels a powerful pang to hear Ezra use his first name. "Yes, but can you run, you sonofabitch?" he growls. Ezra huffs a laugh.

"Call it," he says.

"Tails."

There's a a smart slap as Ezra brings his palm down on the back of his hand. He tips it open, drops his chin to his chest.

"You win, Mr. Larabee. Tails it is."

"Good. Now get your ass outa here."

"That," Ezra says, head snapping up again, "is not how it worked last time around. Are you changin' the rules?"

"I'm entitled," Chris says. "As leader."

One way or another, whatever they do, they have to do it quick.

"Well I never cared for authority," Ezra says. "Seems to me, whoever's left, with no covering fire, would only survive by being inhumanly fleet of foot. Which I believe, to my chagrin, might be me." He brings a hand up, cards the fingers through his hair, leaves it pressed to the side of his head.

"Goddamnit." Chris sticks his gun back in its holster. "I ain't arguin' anymore. There's only one way to go, Ezra. Together. You up to this?" He grabs hold of the arm, pulls it away from Ezra's head. "You ain't gonna take a dive? Cause I don't think I can carry you."

Ezra swallows thickly. "On the contrary. I never felt more like runnin' for mah life ..." He pauses, struggles for the words, makes Chris's stomach drop into his boots, "... in mah life."

"Just ... don't run in a straight line."

"Ingenious."

"And whatever happens, if you get to your horse, just ride. Don't look back. Don't wait."

Ezra thumps the heel of his hand against his brow-bone, scrunches up his eyes. "As if I would come back for the likes of you."

"Let's get the hell out of here then."

"Yes," Ezra agrees. "Let's."

\------

Chris will always remember the sound of Ezra's banshee yell as they lit out into the open.

It will stick in his mind even more than the long seconds pelting through a firestorm, the wicked bite of metal across his forearm, the feeling of falling while still running.

He'll remember, too, being dragged into the trees and the sound of a rifle cracking right over his head.

Vin's been giving them what cover he could.

"I told you to ride!" Chris yells at him as soon as he can get as far up as his knees. "What's the matter with you?" He's bleeding, clipped the back of Ezra's leg when he fell, brought him down too. They're both stunned. Stunned by the fall, and by being in one piece.

Vin doesn't answer, is too busy bundling Ezra up off the ground and on to his horse.

"He means thank you," Ezra interprets, making a wild grab for the saddle horn to avoid going right over.

"God damn right he does," Vin replies, slapping Ezra on the thigh. "You gonna stay up there or do I have to rope you on?"

"If I fall off, you have my permission to leave me to die peacefully in the dust."

"'kay then."

Vin's not even hobbling anymore. He's practically dragging his bad leg behind him.

Chris mounts one-handed, waits for the others. He watches Ezra struggle to control his skittish horse and Vin throw himself bodily at his, kicking it off before he's even upright in the saddle. He wheels around, puts his full weight into getting a start, throwing a desperate look back over his shoulder.

"Holy shit they're comin'" he says.


	6. Chapter 6

Nathan's up most of the night digging shrapnel out of his friends and mopping up blood.

He's resigned to it, knows these limbs and this blood only too well. Watching them coming in wounded, one by one as if they had a pack of devils on their tail, makes him spit. Chris had all but promised he didn't intend to spark any trouble.

Doesn't take Nathan and Josiah long to figure out there's been an ambush.

JD has a hole in his hand, Buck's missing a chunk from one shoulder and Chris is carrying lead in his forearm. All of them are over-fired with nervous energy, none of them intending to rest. They just want to be cleaned and stitched and bound up tight as they can handle. Nathan's stashed them all in the jail, away from prying eyes. Not that they have to worry. Whoever was pursuing them peeled away several miles back but Chris is keeping the whole town in lock-down.

Josiah and Vin are still out on watch, even though Vin can hardly stand, and there's no-one else to help out except Ezra.

Ezra's doing fine, though. Nathan has to concede that much. He's taking a few too many damn slugs of whisky, but he's done all that's been required and then some. Doesn't seem bothered by the blood and mess involved in poking around gunshot wounds and takes all the abuse flung at him in good part. Has a soothing way about him, too, keeps his voice low, sees what he can do before he's told to do it. Insists he can deal with Buck and does.

Nathan would never have guessed.

The wounded are another thing altogether.

Bitchin' unhelpful, wearing Nathan's temper down to the bone. Won't sit still, keep yammering on about who ran faster than who and how far it was. Nathan prefers a calm sickroom, and not to have to chase his patients around waving pairs of scissors.

"They're playin' with us," Chris says, giving his bandaged arm a dispassionate glance. "I've fuckin' had enough."

"Stay sittin' down."

"I'm done, Nathan."

"You're not done until I say you're done." Nathan runs his fingers over the dressing, slides a palm against Chris's. "Can you grip?"

"'Course I can grip." Chris flexes his hand, winces, tries to squeeze hard against Nathan.

"That's not gripping."

"What?" Chris grits his teeth, tries again. "That's not gripping?"

"Okay, easy. Stop now. Don't want to do more damage. Just tryin' to show you is all. You're gonna have trouble with your gun, Chris. And you're not the only one."

"I can shoot," Buck grumbles from across the room where Ezra's standing back admiring his handiwork as if he's a sculptor.

"You're gonna have trouble."

Chris pulls his hand away. "Just say it, Nathan."

"Looks me to like we're down three guns, at least."

"This isn't my shooting hand," JD insists from inside one the cells, waving a white paw.

"You shoot with both, I seen you," Nathan replies. "You gonna shoot twice as fast with the good one?"

"If I have to."

Nathan shakes his head. "You're not invincible," he says. "None of you."

Chris gives Nathan a resentful glare and then takes his hand-gun from its holster, tests the weight in his hand, a grimace of pain on his face all the while.

"Nathan," he says. "You need to look at Vin's leg."

"You get him in here, I'll look at his leg."

"Buck, how're you doin'?"

"Feel like some idiot's been jabbin' me with a needle. But I'm fixed up, Ezra here's done a real purty job on me. Anyone ever tell you you got healin' hands?"

"Healing?" Ezra's dry as a bone. "Not exactly." He's leaning rather precariously on the desk, boots crossed at the ankle, flask poised at his lips.

"JD?"

"Fine," JD answers, sounding tired.

Nathan looks from to one to another. He hates to see them like this, drained and hurting and not about to give into it. Makes him feel like this job - if it is indeed a job, rather than a random way of life that has them all trapped in its jaws - is going to crush them, one by one, however many times he patches them up.

"You boys need rest." He says it even though he knows Chris will disagree.

"We don't have time to lie around and heal nice, Nathan. They're not gonna surprise us again. I won't let that happen."

Nathan folds his arms. "They're not here yet."

"They will be."

"Well until they are."

Could be five minutes, Nathan thinks. Could be five days. He can see Chris nearly buckling under the weight. Buck and JD's heads have begun to droop, the false energy that escape and flight lent them trickling away with each passing minute. There's the sound of Ezra spinning the lid of his whisky flask. He gets to his feet.

"I will bring you Mr. Tanner," he says. "Even if I have to drag him here by his hair. And I will join Josiah on a stroll about town."

"Shoot, Ezra, you need to rest too."

"Doubtless. But since I alone ran fast enough to avoid getting myself punctured I think the next watch falls to me."

"You," mutters Buck.

Nathan watches Ezra as he walks stiffly to the door, shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow, bloodstains on his vest. His hair is standing on end, full of dust. His face, like the others', is streaked with silvery dirt, spotted with small cuts from the exploding granite. Every movement speaks of pulled muscles and bruises.

Chris eases himself down on one of the cell cots with a groan.

Nathan feels a little line of tension running up the back of his neck and he rubs at it.

Fine bunch of damn heroes, he thinks.

\-----

Horizon stays empty and shimmering to the east all next day.

Nothing moving in the trees to the west.

Post stage comes in and out. Denver stage arrives and leaves next day. There's a bit of movement around town but not much. It's like Sunday all day, but quieter.

Josiah sits on the church steps and considers the omens, doesn't mention that he saw a snake in the scrub when he got up at first light to take a piss. Seems no point.

He raises a hand of acknowledgment to whoever passes him on the way to skirt round town a few times. Chris has ambush on his mind, doesn't want anyone jumped too far out. He still can't grip his gun properly.

JD's hand has turned nasty. He's spiked a fever, is weak as a kitten.

Josiah doesn't want Four Corners shot to pieces and the people who sit in his church threatened. He's not sure at what point he began to feel like that about the town, but he knows Nathan feels the same and he's pretty sure Chris does, too. It's been a long time since Josiah's felt an identification with any place at all. It didn't appeal to him at first, with its wide, wind-blown streets and history of murder, but there's something that's keeping him here. Never came across a town before so happy to tolerate a doctor who isn't a doctor, a preacher who's been de-frocked, and a bunch of lawmen with no badges.

To Josiah's mind, he, Nathan and Chris are different from the others in this respect. Buck and JD would probably be happy any place, long as certain things remained equal. Ezra works hard at not belonging, just as he's been taught, but Josiah reckons it goes against his true nature though he'd die rather than admit it. Vin's the opposite. He was taught where he belonged but, thinking on it, has decided to be alone. He's bound tight to the rest of them, though, Josiah knows that. Still limping like an old man, and scratchy with it.

They're all scratchy, and that preys on Josiah. He was standing there in the morning sunshine relieving himself and thinking just that very thought when he saw the snake. A bad enough omen to remind him that, at times, the ties that bind are gossamer-thin. Nothing can be taken for granted.

The pall of expectation that hangs over the town is heavy. Makes Josiah's shoulders thrum.

From his prone position he watches Chris Larabee cross towards the saloon. It's a familiar prowl, laced with a mite more tension than usual.

Must be looking for Ezra.

Josiah gets up from the steps and begins down towards the jail. Sure enough, after a minute, Chris emerges through the batwings and begins to lope across the street. Josiah picks up pace a little, enters the door on his heels.

"No Ezra?" he hears Chris bark as soon as he's inside.

"Not yet."

"Damn."

Josiah assesses the room. JD's sitting up on the edge of the cot in one cell looking peaked, picking at something in a bowl. Nathan's watching him. Vin's leaning against the window, looking out. Always looking out. Buck's on the desk, sling still neat and tidy. Chris's entrance has sent a crackle through them all.

"I'll go," Vin says. "My watch anyhow. Think maybe he's down?"

"He's bin fine. Hasn't he bin fine? Darn sight better than most of us."

"Yeah."

There's a little silence. Every one of them is imagining Ezra down.

"Thing is ..." begins JD a bit feebly and Josiah wonders why Buck's yelped a sharp "Hey!" at him.

"Thing is?"

JD clears his throat. He looks over at Buck uneasily. Buck's got a warning look on his face, stern, like all bets are suddenly off.

"Thing is?" Chris repeats loudly. "JD, what is the thing?"

JD puts down his bowl and moves to get up. Nathan won't let him.

"Damnit, Buck! I'm sorry but ... we don't know if ... "

Chris is beginning to seethe. "If there's something you need to tell me about Ezra, I suggest you do it right away, kid. I told you all ... an' I told him. None of this crap works - none of it - if you numbskulls don't tell me what the hell's going on. Now, what the fuck is the thing?"

"Other night ... when the stage was attacked ... he went missing ... Buck and me, we found him ... and damn but he was in bad shape, couldn't hardly stand the pain in his head, didn't know what the hell ... we looked after him best we could but see ... if it's happened again, he'd be ... he'd be going crazy with it somewhere, bangin' his head about and gettin' sick."

"I don't believe this," Nathan says. He's risen to his feet, walks right out of the cell and across the room to Buck. "Bangin' his head about? You mean to tell me, you saw him like this and you didn't come to me? What the hell am I doing here, slicing bullets out of you and taking all your crap, if you're not goin' to come tell me when there's something important I need to know?" He's right in Buck's face, is getting more furious by the second as the implications sink in. Josiah thinks he's chosen Buck because Buck, unlike JD, doesn't look a bit sorry.

"We promised him," Buck says, and he's on his feet now, too, nearly nose to nose with Nathan.

"Stupid promise, Buck." Chris sounds disgusted. "Stupid and puts us all in the shit."

"A promise is a promise." Buck looks past Nathan, straight at JD.

"I told you," Chris repeats, voice cold as stone. "And I told Ezra. We can't afford to carry him when we're in trouble like this. Stupid, Buck."

"Yeah, I heard you. And nex' time you're whinin' how you don't know if we c'n trust him, be sure to remind him he can't trust us either."

Chris stares at him, long and hard.

"Fair point, Chris," Vin says quietly.

_Et tu, Brute?_

That's what Chris's face says, although he doesn't react directly to Vin, which is probably a bad sign. Josiah whistles. He means it to be inaudible but Chris swings round to him at once.

"You think it's a fair point, Josiah?"

"Whether we can trust Ezra is not the problem," Nathan interrupts angrily. "If he's sick you got no right to keep it to yourselves. No damn right. You say it was bad, JD?"

"It was awful," JD says. He's kind of slumped back down, like he won't be getting up after all, hasn't got the legs.

"Damnit, JD!" Buck's furious enough to be using a tone with JD that Josiah's never heard before. "Not your secret to tell. I thought we agreed!"

"He could be in trouble," JD says miserably.

"Damn right he could," Vin says. "But just 'cause a man fights by your side don't mean you need to know all his secrets." He picks up his rifle and shoves past Chris on the way out the door. It bangs shut.

Chris looks at the floor for a long second and then up at Josiah. He never forgets when he's asked a question and hasn't had an answer.

"Well?"

Josiah needs to choose his words carefully, because he realizes that they have, at this moment, split into two halves as easily as a cracker, and that makes his shoulders thrum more than ever. Before he's able to formulate the appropriate response, the door springs open again and in walks Ezra large as life.

"Damnit, JD!" Buck says even more forcefully.

"Where the hell have you been?" demands Chris. "Are you all right?"

A small line appears between Ezra's brows. He sniffs the challenge and responds in kind. "Don't I look all right?"

Josiah could have wished for a less inflammatory tone of voice.

"No, you secretive sonofabitch, you look like hell. You always look like hell. And you won't be fuckin' honest with us and I'm tired of it, Ezra!"

Ezra takes a look around. The line deepens.

"Well what have we here? Mr. Tanner walking away in high dudgeon. Accusations of dishonesty. Do I detect infamy in the air?"

Buck just slouches, worries the ends of bandaging under one arm.

"Yes." Ezra's eyes stray towards JD. "Yes, I think I do."

Josiah figures three against three, with Ezra in the middle, will make for a very poor outcome. So he decides to tell them all that.

"You know, brothers," he says, "I saw a snake this morning."

\----

The disharmony lasts for a while. Long enough to tire them all out.

And God knows, Ezra's weary enough.

He's weary to the core, with waiting, with looking at the world at a slant. The fractures in his memory make him wonder if he's not going a little crazy. Even though his goddamned head can hardly take the smell of it anymore, whisky seems even more wildly attractive than usual. That doesn't make sense and he knows it. His weaknesses of mind and body are too numerous, the art of covering them up too difficult.

Ezra's ready, as he has often been, to give up.

So his bag is open on the bed.

It's a carpet bag with stiff, worn sides. Maude would probably call it a 'portmanteau', would claim its construction to be of genuine Brussels carpet. Ezra's had it for years. Whenever he gets it out it means he's on the move. Maude made sure to bring it for him on her last visit. She knows him better than he would like.

Not a big bag. Just large enough for the few things that Ezra counts as personal or faintly precious. The cuff-link box in navy-blue leather that may or may not have belonged to his father, whoever he was. Some papers relating to a gambling hall in New York City in which he may or may not have a stake, depending on who's holding the gun. The pins and rings that Ezra particularly likes, some of which may even be genuine. A handful of books, all with other people's names inscribed on the front pages. A horse-hair lint brush and silver-handled razor, the only remaining items from a set which he won off a man in Savannah when he was sixteen and supposed to be somewhere else entirely.

It's not much, and it fits neatly amongst the favorite items of clothing he still counts as respectable. He wishes Maude had never brought the bag to Four Corners. The ritual it represents is too familiar and inevitable. Ezra thinks he might prefer to stuff the faintly precious items into a saddle-bag and just ride out in what he's wearing. If he has to ride out at all. And he's convinced himself he does.

Hot air moves the drawn drapes. Ezra goes to the window, parts them with his gun, looks down the street.

The town could be uninhabited, abandoned. It's the middle of the day and there's no movement anywhere. Ezra knows exactly where each of his companions is and he's aware that he's not supposed to be up here. He's supposed to be in position.

High summer and the bees are buzzing.

When Ezra rubs his thumb knuckle along the ridge of his eye socket, he realizes he's sweating.

An arc of reflected light flashes high above the Hardware.

He needs to go.

Riders coming in.

Ezra's only got as far as the bar when they reach the outskirts of town. He can't actually remember having come down the stairs, suddenly doesn't know how long it's been since he turned away from his window.

\-----

The riders are at a slow walk, coming into view at the very top of the street.

They're casual, moving in no particular formation, sometimes led by a man in a white hat. As they pass the church, this man turns slightly in his saddle, looks up, scanning rooftops.

Vin rises to his feet, rifle leveled. The man watches him for a while, until he has to turn his head. Then he faces front again. The slow pace doesn't quicken.

Chris knows Burton Palmer when he sees him. His son Abner's with him and two of the nephews. They're taking a chance riding in alone like this, gambling on some code of honor they're proud not to claim for themselves, the one that dictates Larabee and his men won't cut them down. They know they're being watched, too, and they're interested in that but apparently not very worried.

When they get as far down as the saloon where Chris is standing, coatless, gun on full display, they come to a lazy halt.

"Saloon open?" Abner asks.

Chris shakes his head.

"Anywhere open?"

"Nope."

Burton's looking all round, weighing up whether to dismount or not. "Nice town," he says. "Bet that saloon is real pleasant. What we got to do to open it?"

"Long as I'm here, it won't be open for you," Chris says.

"That so?" Burton smiles. "How many of us do you reckon it'll take, Larabee?"

"How many of your family you prepared to lose?"

Burton shifts in the saddle again, looks up, takes in JD in the upstairs window of the Mercantile.

"Ludo?" he says to one of the nephews, who just grins. At Ludo's side sits Gabe Palmer, idiot smile plastered from ear to ear. Chris can practically feel Vin's finger itching over the trigger. From the corner of his eye he sees Ezra emerging from the batwings and something grasps his gut hard.

Ezra's not supposed to be there.

What the hell is he playing at?

"Weeeell!" hoots Gabe suddenly. "It's the dandy gunslinger. Well fuck me back to front!"

"I'll decline," Ezra can't help saying.

"You'll hooey what?" Gabe's humor disappears as soon as it came. "Yeh, well we ain't forgettin' you put a bullet in our brother and his arm ain't worked right since."

Ezra's been told he shot Ring Palmer but Chris knows he has no memory of it, finds the notion highly disturbing. Chris supposes it must be as if he doesn't know what he might do next. One batwing opens and Ezra comes right out, stands next to him.

Chris wants to tell Ezra to back off but he's not going to do that in front of these men.

"Nice town," Burton says again. "I think all the boys will like it fine." He adjusts his hat slightly, looks along the street, eyes searching rapidly high and low. "We'll be back to get things open real soon. Can't say exactly when. But real soon."

"Town's not yours to open, Palmer."

"Yeah? Well it sure as hell ain't yours to close, Larabee, guns or no guns. And we'll be seein' ya."

Gabe's the last to move off, can't stop staring at Ezra. When he finally does move, he pushes his horse into a fast trot. Seems the Palmers are going out a tad faster than they came in. Vin stays standing, rifle sighted until they're out of range.

"Somethin' you want to tell me?" Chris says over his shoulder. But Ezra just walks past him, down the steps, begins across to the jail.

His steps weave a little, like he's drunk but not too drunk to hide it.

Chris hears the bolt on the door of the Clarion office.

_Shit._

More explaining.

\-----

Chris thinks they'll be back before nightfall and he's right.

He and Nathan move from building to building, making sure people understand they can't start living their lives again yet. Then Nathan checks dressings. None of it looks very good. JD's nearly as shaky as Ezra, so Chris tells him to stay close to Buck. Chris's own wound won't stop seeping because he won't stop gripping.

Josiah thinks things have come to a pretty pass when he and Nathan are going to be the ones to play sharpshooter. Nathan takes JD's place at the Mercantile and Chris tells Ezra he'd better damn well stay where he's told. Vin isn't going to bother coming down off the roof yet. Hurts too much. Josiah throws him up a full canteen.

He hasn't seen anymore omens but in Josiah's experience that doesn't mean much. Doesn't need a flock of crows circling the town. Could be as simple as that damn, early-morning snake.

His guns are primed and his position is set. Nothing to do now except wait.

The waiting always takes up more time than the shooting.

From where he's hunkered down, Josiah has a perfect view of Milton Palmer when he arrives. He heads up the rearguard which blazes into town from behind the Hotel, just as Chris predicted, shooting up a storm.

Four Corners churns under a cloud of dust.

It's still swirling by sundown, a mess of red and yellow drifting slowly across the street.

Josiah has prayers for the dead. One of them's Milt Palmer, killed by the first shot out of Larabee's gun. Burton's lost his nephew Kyle, too. Shot through the heart as he aimed at something moving in his eye-line deep within the shadows of an upstairs window. It was Ezra that killed him, moments before he dropped his own gun and toppled, unmarked, from the outside steps of what'll one day be a nice house.

The sound of a fire-fight is hellish.

It doesn't stop clanging in your ears for the longest time after it's finished. Faces don't stop flashing into your mind, either.

Josiah feels as if he doesn't blink for hours. His guns are hot, the metal stressed. He's moved from one position to another, like they all have. All except Vin, still picking out the stragglers from high on the Hardware, dragging himself from edge to edge.

When the last bullets being fired are traveling away from you, the sound of hooves has retreated far enough, and you start to peer through the hovering gun-smoke to locate your fellow fighters, it's likely some of them will be down. Maybe all of them. At a certain moment, in order to push an advantage, you have to stray from your cover.

It's the moment when you would most expect to lose friends.

Josiah keeps himself calm, checks the places he hopes to find them.

Buck is moving. JD, too, although he's bleeding again. Nathan's sitting up, head back, eyes closed. He's bleeding as well but Josiah can see the rise and fall of his chest.

"God damn this," he hears Chris say from somewhere. There are footsteps and then a hand reaching down to help pull him to his feet.

"You all right, Josiah?"

Josiah waves him to those more in need.

"Is it over?" he wonders out loud.

"Fuckin' better be, we got nothin' left."

Josiah leans against a wall at his back. He shades his eyes and can make out Vin clinging tight hold to the edge of the roof. Chris has bent down by Nathan and he isn't shouting, which seems a hopeful sign. Buck's reached JD now. Or maybe JD's reached Buck.

Ezra's still lying sprawled on the ground at the bottom of the steps.

\-----

Four Corners re-animates over a period of several hours.

Those who've stayed, emerge blinking as if from hibernation. Others drift back in from outlying properties once they get word it looks safe.

The saloon opens for business, as does the undertaker's.

Nothing's ever sure, Chris tells Mary Travis. If Burton Palmer's got any fight left in him, he won't leave his brother and son to be buried by their killers.

Mary asks if it will ever stop.

Chris doesn't know.

"You had to carry two of your men off the street, Mr Larabee. The rest of you are barely standing."

"You askin' me if it's worth it, Mary?"

She's not asking that.

"Judge thinks it is. He's coming to tell you so."

"I look forward to it."

"And Nathan?"

"Doing better."

"Mr. Standish?"

Chris brings his wounded arm into his chest.

"Mr. Standish is a stubborn pain in the ass."

\-----

It's not like Ezra doesn't try to wake up.

But the first few times he gets near are so shocking he lets his senses break up again, disperse in flimsy layers of noise and light.

_It's time now, Ezra ... come on back ... shouldn't he be wakin' up by now? ... for God's sake._

Much of what he hears is unintelligible anyhow.

_Yeah, he just passed right out on the steps ... one second he was standing there, next second he was over ... damn but he's never been out this long ... don't look good._

Voices come and go and he doesn't understand any of it.

_He still breathin'? ... this clever brain doctor of yours, Nathan ... he can do something, right? ... something to make him better?_

Hours of the room swaying backwards and forwards. The pain in his head is brutal; he does nothing but fight against hands that hold him down.

_Don't you dare, Ezra. Don't you fuckin' dare._

And all he has to look forward to when he does drag himself back to awareness is Josiah presiding over the gut-rattling nausea and then Judge Travis coming to tell him he's decided to let him go.

_Let me go._

Ezra would laugh but it's too delicate a job just to stay awake.

By a stroke of good fortune, of course, his bag is already packed.

When twenty-four hours of hell with a cold compress and a rusty bucket has passed, he gets on his feet and politely informs everyone of his departure. They, less politely, inform him that Nathan, who's evidently been a worse patient than all of them put together, has come up with a real humdinger of a plan.

According to him, there's an eminent doctor in Chicago, an ologist of some kind. Knows all about busted skulls. And they all agree that Nathan should accompany Ezra to see him.

As if that would make any difference to anything except someone's bank balance.

"Heard the plan?" Buck says.

It's a breezy morning and the stage stands across the street from Butterfields, ready to leave. Ezra has reached the seat under the tree by the office and has to sit down it. The others have begun to converge on the spot and Ezra would really like to go before his resolve does. His head swims so persistently that the Judge takes the bag out of his hand and throws it on the roof himself. Now Travis is standing by the open door, impatient to be on his way.

"Yeah, Ezra, heard what we're gonna do?"

Buck and JD have an aura of optimism about them that could be very catching.

"I've heard what you think you're going to do."

"It's a good plan, son," Josiah says, "and we like it."

"Well I'm sorry to hear that, gentlemen, because it can't be facilitated."

"Why's that? You think we'll let you go on like this? You reckon we think so little of you?" Nathan's voice is heading up half an octave or more.

_That's easy. Can't even stay on my feet when you need me._

"I believe you think more of me than you should." He struggles to standing. "And I believe I think more of you gentlemen than is ever goin' to be good for me."

That shuts them up, for a whole ten seconds.

"So what, Ezra? What the hell?"

Chris, it seems, will be angry no matter what.

"I'm leavin'."

"Leavin' to where?"

"It hardly matters. My bag is on the stage and it's not traveling without me."

Chris just looks at him.

_Don't you ever run out on me again._

Ezra is chilled despite the heat.

"I am no use to you, Mr. Larabee. Look at me. This is what I am now."

"For the love of God, Ezra ... I know what you are and I'm not cuttin' ya loose, is that clear? You belong right here."

"Mr. Larabee, Judge Travis is not inclined to keep me anymore. I am no longer in his employ. You are now the famous six peacekeepers of Four Corners unless and until you ..." He pauses, swallows. These are among the hardest words he's ever had to utter and it seems he's no more able to convince them of his superior grasp of any given situation than he's ever been, "... until you recruit some other misguided individual."

"C'mon, hoss, we'll sub you," Buck says. "You never held on to your wages longer'n two seconds anyhow. For someone who likes to hoard money you sure manage to let it slip through ya fingers mighty quick." He's just started to sound anxious. JD is looking from one to another of them, trying to gauge what's going to happen.

"So damn well go then if ya goin'."

Chris's tone is brittle, disengaged.

Does more to infuse Ezra with a dizzying desire for mischief than Mr. Larabee will ever appreciate.

Over at the stage, Judge Travis seems to detect a change in the prevailing wind.

"This will undo you, Mr. Standish," he says when Ezra comes over. "It could undo every man jack of you. And for all the fine words he spoke in your favor, Mr Larabee will certainly find cause to consider that."

"Ah have no doubt Mr. Larabee will consider it on a daily basis," Ezra replies dryly.

Travis leans nearer. "No, Ezra, I mean this will be your final undoing, if you stay here. It will kill you or get you killed. St. Louis would be safer. Would prolong your life by a stretch."

There's dust blowing round their ankles. It whips up suddenly, makes the back of Ezra's coat-tails flap, makes the Judge close his eyes against the grit.

"There's nothin' I desire in St. Louis, Judge."

"Really." Travis gets a hand to the side of the stage. "And if I was to offer you an incentive?"

Ezra can feel his eyes gleaming. The words are undeniably delicious. "You payin' me to go away?"

"I'm thinking of your associates."

Something in that makes Ezra mad. As if the Judge could possibly think more of his associates than he does himself. Why, hasn't he just been stupid enough to tell them so?

"Well I can't say it's not very tempting, sir. Very tempting indeed." He nods his head, smiles into the wind. Making lightning quick decisions is what Ezra is all about. "Perhaps at some later date. For the moment, I think we will try to muddle through."

"Ezra," says Judge Travis gravely, "I don't think you will _have_ a later date." He signals to the driver to throw down Ezra's bag, and then he climbs up into the stage, sits down heavily.

Ezra slams the door shut. "Very likely. But _que sera sera_, my good sir. And _bon voyage_."

There's a shout, a crack and then the stage gives an almighty rattle before it begins to move.

Ezra picks up his bag and begins to walk while earth is kicked up at his back.

When he gets as far as the Butterfields' tree, he is astonished to find that they are all still standing there underneath it. All six of them. They are, in fact, waiting for him.

"What he say?" Vin asks, as if it's the most natural thing in the world that Ezra has just apparently changed his mind.

"That he expects I will die here in this dust-blown hellhole, Mr. Tanner."

"Not if we have any damn say in it you won't ... gimme that!" Chris wrestles the bag out of his grasp so vigorously that Vin reaches out an instinctive hand to stop Ezra from stumbling backwards. Chris sees that, doesn't react. He just turns and begins to stride in a long diagonal across the street towards the Saloon.

"Now what's the matter with him?" Ezra asks plaintively. He feels the bolt of steel lock tight through his skull and his hand goes up before he can stop it.

Vin's fingers close round his shoulder, press him down into the seat.

"Don't pay him no mind, Ez," Vin says, eyes following Larabee across the street and in through the batwings. He pats Ezra's shoulder, keeps the hand where it is, warm and solid. "He's just pleased."

And the rest of them say nothing.

They watch the stage pull out, and stay standing close, right where they are.

 

-ENDS-


End file.
